tag:theconversation.com,2011:/institutions/rutgers-university-1240/articlesRutgers University2019-01-02T11:23:55Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1087182019-01-02T11:23:55Z2019-01-02T11:23:55ZOnly 1 out of 36 newly elected female representatives in Congress is Republican – here's why it matters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252150/original/file-20181230-47322-1vmab9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;rect=0%2C0%2C3361%2C2088&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Carol Miller of West Virginia is the only newly elected Republican woman joining the 116th Congress.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/House-Member-Elect-Orientation/93bd3cc9f2b84fa689938516c191891a/2/0">AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 116th Congress will be the most diverse in U.S. history: 126 women will take office, including 43 women of color. Yet, as <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/21/democratic-women-make-big-gains-in-house-as-gop-women-lose-ground-in-historic-election.html">many</a> have <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/12/13/house-gop-women-shrinking-lowest-level-25-years/2207124002/">noted</a>, this new diversity is confined to one side of the aisle. </p>
<p>The number of Republican women in Congress <a href="http://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/resources/results_release_5bletterhead5d_1.pdf">is actually dropping</a> from 23 to 13. Only one out of 36 freshman female representatives is a Republican. So while 2018 certainly was the Year of the Woman, Republican women are watching from the sidelines. </p>
<p>Whether you are progressive or conservative, this is bad news. As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=9DitCa4AAAAJ&amp;hl=en&amp;oi=ao">political</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=jnBSYuwAAAAJ&amp;hl=en&amp;oi=ao">scientists</a>, we strongly believe that both democracy and feminism work best when there is a critical mass of women in each major political party. A democracy should reflect the diversity of its society. Considering that women make up over half of the U.S. population but only 23 percent of Congress, American democracy already under represents women. For Republican women, the mismatch is even more pronounced. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/07/us/elections/house-exit-polls-analysis.html">Nearly half</a> of all women in this country regularly vote for Republican candidates. For example, Donald Trump won <a href="https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/polls/us-elections/how-groups-voted/groups-voted-2016/">41 percent</a> of the female vote in 2016 and Mitt Romney won <a href="https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/polls/us-elections/how-groups-voted/how-groups-voted-2012/">44 percent</a> in 2012. Yet the overall numbers of Republican women candidates and elected women has <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/gender">stagnated</a> at around 15 percent for the past two decades and is now declining. </p>
<p>This is important for many reasons.</p>
<h2>GOP women add value to the democratic process</h2>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252059/original/file-20181228-47292-1gbp1j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252059/original/file-20181228-47292-1gbp1j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252059/original/file-20181228-47292-1gbp1j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=426&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252059/original/file-20181228-47292-1gbp1j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=426&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252059/original/file-20181228-47292-1gbp1j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=426&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252059/original/file-20181228-47292-1gbp1j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=535&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252059/original/file-20181228-47292-1gbp1j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=535&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252059/original/file-20181228-47292-1gbp1j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=535&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Ilhan Omar of Minnesota is one of 35 freshman Democrats joining Congress.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Pelosi-House-Democrats/d18549c0d728410f8ec1c76ab400b75f/4/0">AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>For one, Republican women, both as voters and legislators, often have different <a href="https://pages.uncc.edu/mary-atkinson/wp-content/uploads/sites/619/2018/05/AtkinsonAndWindett_GenderStereotypes.pdf">policy views and priorities</a> than their male counterparts. Elected Republican women have provided crucial voices in setting policy. For example, Republican women were <a href="https://stefanik.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/house-republicans-introduce-vawa-extension">vocal</a> in their support to reauthorize the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/103rd-congress/senate-bill/11">1993 Violence Against Women Act</a> last year. Republican women have also been able to speak about womanhood in a language that fellow conservative lawmakers could relate to. Further, GOP women have <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/mariel-klein/women-in-congress-are-more-bipartisan-collaborative_b_6715606.html">forged bipartisan compromises</a> in the past few decades with Democratic women. </p>
<p>More generally, research has shown that women on both sides of the aisle provide excellent <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2011.00512.x">constituency service</a> and are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12010">more effective lawmakers</a> than men. In other words, it is a problem for all of us from Republican districts – and for democracy more generally – if women are mostly concentrated in one party. </p>
<h2>Higher hurdles for GOP women</h2>
<p>So what can be done? </p>
<p>Most importantly, we should dispel the myth that the decline of women in the GOP is a Republican “war on women” with the GOP actively trying to keep women out of the party. Instead, our <a href="https://www.abc-clio.com/ABC-CLIOCorporate/product.aspx?pc=A5236C">research</a> shows that Republican women face greater <a href="https://www.politicalparity.org/research/primary-hurdles/">barriers</a> to entry compared to either Democratic women or Republican men. </p>
<p>First, Republican women have more limited access than Republican men to campaign dollars at the crucial primary stage when fundraising numbers signal candidate viability. </p>
<p>Both in individual donations and political action committee, or PAC, giving, the picture looks bleak for Republican women. In <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/10/democratic-women-outraise-men-among-female-donors-another-record-breaking-first/">2018</a>, Republican women raised approximately US$19 million from women donors. Compare that to $159 million Democratic female candidates raised from women. </p>
<p>One of the biggest problems for Republican women is that they do not have access to an established and well-funded PAC network. While Democrats have EMILY’s List, which supports pro-choice Democratic women as candidates, and many more well-funded progressive women’s PACs, conservative women’s PACs are fragmented and underfunded. One conservative counterpart to EMILY’s List is the Susan B. Anthony List, which supports pro-life candidates of both genders. In 2018, <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00193433&amp;cycle=2018">EMILY’s List</a> spent almost $69 million in support of Democratic pro-choice women. In contrast, the <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00332296">SBA List</a> spent around $799,000 in support of pro-life candidates including Democratic and Republican men. </p>
<p>In addition to limited funds, conservative women PACs lack visibility and viability. WISH List, supporting pro-choice Republican women, faltered within 10 years and ShePAC within two years. <a href="https://www.abc-clio.com/ABC-CLIOCorporate/product.aspx?pc=A5236C">Research</a> by political scientists Rosalyn Cooperman and Melody Crowder-Meyer show that few GOP donors have heard of these efforts. Low visibility and limited funds mean that an endorsement of such PACs carries little weight compared to the endorsement of EMILY’s List, which is widely seen as a signal of viability and leads to an influx of donations from other sources. </p>
<p>Other efforts to increase the number of Republican women such as the National Republican Congressional Committee’s “Project GROW” – which stands for “Growing Republican Opportunities for Women” – have also fallen short. As the first female head of the National Republican Congressional Committee, New York Rep. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opinion/gop-women-republican-stefanik.html">Elise Stefanik</a> recruited over 100 women to run for the Republican Party. Only one of them won office.</p>
<p>Second, Republican women have a pipeline problem. Typically, candidates first run for local or state office before making a run for U.S. Congress. Yet, as of 2018, only <a href="http://cawp.rutgers.edu/women-state-legislature-2018">37.6 percent</a> of all female state legislators across the U.S. are Republican. Fewer Republican women in lower offices means that fewer women will run for Congress. But this lack of a good bench is not due to a lack of ambition. Political scientist <a href="https://www.abc-clio.com/ABC-CLIOCorporate/product.aspx?pc=A5236C">Abbie Erler of Kenyon College shows</a> that Republican women are as ambitious as Democratic women. Instead, Republican women tend to live in states where opportunity structures are limited, meaning congressional delegations are small and turnover is low.</p>
<p>Third, Republicans reject “identity politics.” As political scientist <a href="https://www.abc-clio.com/ABC-CLIOCorporate/product.aspx?pc=A5236C">Cathy Wineinger of Western Washington University shows</a>, the Republican Party traditionally emphasizes individualism, social conservatism, a free market economy and national security. The GOP dismisses group-based representational claims about identity or diversity, which the Democratic Party embraces. This ideological bent hampers internal discussion of why electing women is important and makes it harder to establish a positive mechanism to address the lack of women in the party. </p>
<p>This is why <a href="https://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/elise-stefanik-wants-to-play-in-primaries-to-help-republican-women">Stefanik’s push</a> for a new conservative women’s PAC is so important. She correctly identified the most important step to getting more women elected: early financial and logistical support in primaries. Without an entity that provides training, access to experienced campaign staff and fundraising, the GOP will never remedy its women deficit. </p>
<p>In the long run, being the party of white men is a losing <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/02/us/politics/republicans-midterms-house-losses.html">demographic strategy</a> for Republicans. More importantly, democracy depends on the debate of multiple viewpoints by diverse people. We do not mean to suggest that there must be perfect numerical equality at all times, but inequities should rotate, not stagnate. For legitimate representative governance, each party needs to contain a strong core of elected women. The American government and governing system would be better with more women on each side of the aisle.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108718/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Malliga Och was the Research Director of Political Parity, a former program of Hunt Alternatives, that funded parts of this research. Malliga Och is currently the academic Research Fellow of the Reflective Democratic Campaign, a project of the Woman Donors Network. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shauna Shames was the Research Fellow of Political Parity, a former program of Hunt Alternatives, which funded parts of this research.</span></em></p>Republican women face higher barriers to reaching elected office. A GOP allergy to identity politics plays a role too.Malliga Och, Assistant Professor of Global Studies and Languages, Idaho State UniversityShauna Shames, Assistant Professor, Rutgers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1073062018-12-06T00:10:11Z2018-12-06T00:10:11ZCorporate welfare bums: It’s payback time<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248507/original/file-20181203-194938-dif4fx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hundreds of people march in Vancouver to protest against corporate greed as part of the global Occupy movement in October 2011.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Canada’s welfare state is disintegrating. Meanwhile, Canada’s corporate welfare state has never been stronger. </p>
<p>In his <a href="https://www.budget.gc.ca/fes-eea/2018/docs/statement-enonce/toc-tdm-en.html">2018 Fall Economic Report</a>, Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced that corporations would receive $14 billion in new tax breaks. Enough money <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/3626888/canada-child-care-cost-imf/">to fund</a> a national daycare program is being handed over to the business sector. </p>
<p>Although the rationale is the supposed need to maintain Canada’s competitiveness in the face of U.S. President Donald Trump’s gargantuan tax cuts, it is actually a question of priorities — or, more accurately, constituencies. The federal government has made it clear to whom it feels accountable. </p>
<p>In a time of <a href="https://tradingeconomics.com/canada/corporate-profits">record profits</a>, Canadian corporations already receive <a href="https://www.policyschool.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Business-Subsidies-in-Canada-Lester.pdf">billions</a> in subsidies every year, not to mention massive <a href="http://projects.thestar.com/canadas-corporations-pay-less-tax-than-you-think/">corporate tax cuts and loopholes</a> and the roughly $3 billion in taxes that wealthy Canadians and corporations <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2018/06/28/canadians-with-offshore-holdings-evade-up-to-3-billion-in-tax-per-year.html">evade through offshore havens</a> on an annual basis. Despite perennial promises by government to crack down, that money continues to accumulate, sloshing around the <a href="https://www.wealthx.com/report/world-ultra-wealth-report-2018/">global economy</a> in an era of unprecedented wealth and inequality.</p>
<h2>Victory for the one per cent</h2>
<p>This triumph of the “one per cent” follows decades of cuts to the social welfare programs that strengthen the fabric of our society. According <a href="http://www.oecd.org/social/expenditure.htm">to a report</a> by the OECD, Canada ranks 24th out of 34 countries in social expenditures as a percentage of GDP.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248506/original/file-20181203-194925-1a6ib97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248506/original/file-20181203-194925-1a6ib97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248506/original/file-20181203-194925-1a6ib97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=780&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248506/original/file-20181203-194925-1a6ib97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=780&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248506/original/file-20181203-194925-1a6ib97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=780&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248506/original/file-20181203-194925-1a6ib97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=980&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248506/original/file-20181203-194925-1a6ib97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=980&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248506/original/file-20181203-194925-1a6ib97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=980&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">NDP Leader David Lewis in February 1973.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chuck Mitchell</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Austerity-minded governments have insisted that we cannot afford the rising costs of social programs without incurring enormous deficits or a higher tax burden on ordinary Canadians. But this argument does not, apparently, apply to tax breaks for corporations. And the double standard is not new.</p>
<p>In the 1972 federal election campaign, the New Democratic Party denounced “corporate welfare bums.” Federal leader David Lewis (grandfather of co-author Avi Lewis) railed against multinational corporations that received significant subsidies from the government while at the same time escaping their fair share of taxes. </p>
<p>He said in his book <a href="http://www.lorimer.ca/adults/Book/1717/Louder-Voices.html"><em>Louder Voices: The Corporate Welfare Bums</em></a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I oppose in principle the tax concessions and loopholes for which large, often foreign-owned corporations benefit at the expense of the ordinary Canadian taxpayer. The latter is forced to carry a heavier tax burden because the corporations do not pay their share.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Lewis added that “while social welfare legislation has been subjected to the most critical scrutiny as to its costs, benefits and consequences,” and been consistently targeted for cuts, “the attention of Canadians has been deflected from any examination of…the corporate welfare state.” He went on:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Welfare is for the needy, not big and wealthy multinational corporations.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This campaign proved enormously successful. The NDP elected 31 MPs, their biggest caucus to that point. They also held the balance of power in a minority Liberal government. Canadians proved receptive to calls to re-balance the tax burden and direct government spending to benefit people over corporations.</p>
<h2>Firms don’t gripe when they get bailouts</h2>
<p>And yet, 45 years later, corporations continue to receive billions of dollars in grants and tax breaks, and social spending suffers. Corporations extol the value of the free market and denounce increased government spending. Except, of course, when government largesse flows their way.</p>
<p>What do Canadians get for these billions of dollars in corporate welfare payments? We’re told that corporations require grants and tax breaks to remain competitive, to create jobs and to stimulate the economy.</p>
<p>And yet a singular feature of corporate welfare is that it’s almost always free of any conditions to ensure those benefits actually occur. </p>
<p>The most striking example in Canadian history happened just recently. General Motors, <a href="https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GM/general-motors/gross-profit">a company that makes about $20 billion each year</a>, is closing its Oshawa plant, bringing to an end a century of automotive production in that city. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248508/original/file-20181203-194928-12wwrhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248508/original/file-20181203-194928-12wwrhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=399&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248508/original/file-20181203-194928-12wwrhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=399&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248508/original/file-20181203-194928-12wwrhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=399&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248508/original/file-20181203-194928-12wwrhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=502&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248508/original/file-20181203-194928-12wwrhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=502&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248508/original/file-20181203-194928-12wwrhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=502&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Union head Jerry Dias addresses GM workers in Oshawa in late November 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Eduardo Lima</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Just a decade ago, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/thenational/national-today-newsletter-gm-oshawa-medical-implants-1.4920729">Canada engineered a $10.8 billion bailout of the company, with an eventual cost to the public purse of $4-5 billion</a>. For all those tax dollars, federal and provincial politicians purchased zero leverage. The plant will now close, and 2,200 people will lose their jobs while our governments claim utter impotence to intervene. </p>
<p>Even more disturbing is the estimated <a href="http://theindependent.ca/2018/01/26/wasteful-corporate-subsidies-deplete-funds-for-social-programs/">$3.3 billion</a> a year that our federal and provincial governments bestow on the large oil and gas producers to continue polluting the planet. </p>
<h2>It’s time to pay us back</h2>
<p>And in a few years, we could look back at current oil and gas handouts as a bargain. Recent revelations suggest that the industry is sitting on <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/2018/11/01/what-would-it-cost-to-clean-up-albertas-oilpatch-260-billion-a-top-official-warns.html">$260 billion of environmental liabilities</a>, which could very well fall to the public purse.</p>
<p>If David Lewis were alive today, he would doubtless discover new levels of eloquent outrage. He might say: If Canada’s largest 100 corporations paid the full amount of even our insufficient corporate tax rate and did not take handouts, we would have tens of billions more each year to devote to the priorities of the many, not just the few.</p>
<p>We could fund that national day care program, make post-secondary education a free public service, build clean electric mass transit across the country and many other programs that would benefit the people of Canada. </p>
<p>In an era of climate crisis, precarious work and instability, it’s time the corporate welfare bums paid us back.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107306/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roberta Lexier receives funding from SSHRC. She is affiliated with the Broadbent Institute and is a member of the New Democratic Party. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Avi Lewis is affiliated with The Leap, a non-profit devoted to making system change irresistible, and building a world based on caring for the earth and one another.</span></em></p>Canada’s welfare state is disintegrating while corporate welfare soars. In an era of climate crisis, precarious work and instability, it’s time the corporate welfare bums paid us back.Roberta Lexier, Associate Professor, Department of General Education, Mount Royal UniversityAvi Lewis, Lecturer, Rutgers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1074832018-11-29T11:42:05Z2018-11-29T11:42:05ZYouth violence: rise could be linked to British people's growing distrust of authority<p>There has been <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-45905954">a surge</a> in violent crime across the UK during 2018, including <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/26/surge-in-knife-offences-fuels-rise-in-violent">a 22% increase</a> in knife crime and an 11% rise in gun crime. Homicide rates have hit their highest point in over a decade. In London alone, there have been <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-46128268">123 homicides</a> so far this year, including 70 fatal stabbings and 14 shootings.</p>
<p>Politicians, journalists and experts have blamed a wide range of factors for this upswing in violence: <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/line-18-gang-warfare-is-killing-londons-young-black-men-11447089">gangs</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/apr/09/uk-drill-music-london-wave-violent-crime">drill music</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-43653291">drug turf wars</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/knife-crime-and-homicide-figures-reveal-the-violence-of-austerity-104964">austerity</a>, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/uk-police-cuts-violent-crime-london-stabbings-met-police-chief-cressida-dick-a8357796.html">police cuts</a> and dwindling <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/05/cut-youth-services-violent-crime-sure-start-child-tax-credits">youth services</a>. But <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311066330_%27Going_Viral%27_and_%27Going_Country%27_The_Expressive_and_Instrumental_Activities_of_Street_Gangs_on_Social_Media">having researched</a> serious youth violence in London for more than a decade, we believe that the root of this issue goes far deeper.</p>
<p>Studies <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275838401_Losing_Legitimacy_Street_Crime_and_the_Decline_of_Socal_Institutions_in_America">have shown</a> that when the public’s trust in the government and its elected officials goes down, violence goes up. In other words, if people feel society is unfair, they are less inclined to play by the rules and more likely to lash out violently. </p>
<h2>Losing legitimacy?</h2>
<p>From the handling of <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/brexit-9976">Brexit</a> to the fire at <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-people-have-long-questioned-the-point-of-public-inquiries-86648">Grenfell tower</a>, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-hillsborough-law-needed-to-tackle-burning-injustice-and-empower-victims-and-family-86664">miscarriage of justice at Hillsborough</a> and the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-windrush/britain-apologizes-to-migrants-removed-in-windrush-scandal-idUSKCN1L617K">Windrush scandal</a>, there are plenty of reasons why British people might distrust their political leaders. </p>
<p>And due to the rise of “<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-term-fake-news-is-doing-great-harm-100406?">fake news</a>”, there’s also growing distrust of the institution designed to hold elected officials to account – the media. Social media platforms – plagued by <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/23/opinions/social-media-fuels-right-wing-extremism-opinion-peterson-densley/index.html">extremism</a>, trolling and disinformation – kindle and spread moral outrage, whether it’s based on real events or not. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247940/original/file-20181129-170229-jofpsw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247940/original/file-20181129-170229-jofpsw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=450&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247940/original/file-20181129-170229-jofpsw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=450&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247940/original/file-20181129-170229-jofpsw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=450&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247940/original/file-20181129-170229-jofpsw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=566&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247940/original/file-20181129-170229-jofpsw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=566&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247940/original/file-20181129-170229-jofpsw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=566&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Angry reacts abound.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/rzeszow-poland-12-february-2018-facebook-1023283927?src=j_UBLrL_96xZ4yEBBBZMfg-1-0">photo_pw/Shutterstock.</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>For people of colour – who are <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/02/london-sees-rise-knife-crimes-180224152346205.html">disproportionately</a> the victims and perpetrators of knife crime in London – the <a href="https://www.demos.co.uk/press-release/anti-social-media-10000-racial-slurs-a-day-on-twitter-finds-demos-2/">casual racism</a> they encounter every day on social media can make the world feel especially unfair and unstable.</p>
<p>The annual trust barometer survey by <a href="https://www.edelman.co.uk/magazine/posts/edelman-trust-barometer-2018/">PR firm Edelman</a> found that British people hold “little hope for the immediate future”. And while trust in traditional broadcasters and publishers has risen significantly, more people are switching off from news, and overall levels of trust in government, media and business are flat lining. And that’s before the <a href="https://theconversation.com/cambridge-analytica-and-scl-how-i-peered-inside-the-propaganda-machine-94867">Cambridge Analytica data scandal</a> or the recent Brexit negotiations. </p>
<p>In a social and political climate such as this, combined with the strains of austerity, the <a href="http://wapo.st/2xX1B2N?tid=ss_mail&amp;utm_term=.39e5090853db">small disagreements, indignities and disappointments</a>, which people might otherwise brush off, enrage them. And this creates scope for the <a href="http://library.allanschore.com/docs/AggresssionSiegel09.pdf">two principal forms of aggressive behaviour</a> – defensive rage and predatory attack — to emerge.</p>
<h2>A trust deficit</h2>
<p>As violence has risen, <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-policing-paradox-as-crime-rises-detection-rates-of-those-responsible-fall-103193">the proportion of offences</a> for which police have identified the culprit has fallen, and this further erodes civilians’ trust in authority. In 2017, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary <a href="https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmicfrs/news/news-feed/hmic-raises-warning-flag-as-forces-strive-to-cope-with-increased-demand/">described the shortage</a> of police investigators — including detectives — as a “national crisis”. Even London’s Metropolitan Police Service is short some <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/may/31/wanted-london-detectives-no-experience-necessary">700 detectives</a>. </p>
<p>In October 2018, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-45970761">MPs warned that</a> police could become “irrelevant” with so few officers on the beat. Many neighbourhoods with high crime are already inclined to distrust police, owing to their experiences of abuse and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/oct/12/institutional-racism-still-plagues-policing-warns-chief-constable">institutional racism</a>. When police fail to solve crime, people will often bypass law enforcement altogether, instead using violence to resolve disputes. </p>
<p>Not only that, growing tensions between police and communities <a href="https://whatworks.college.police.uk/Research/Documents/Fair_cop_Full_Report.pdf">can lead to further criminality</a>, because successful police work depends heavily on cooperation with the public. When police fail to provide sufficient deterrence to crime, some people feel they can stab and shoot <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/liverpool-gun-gangs-no-longer-fear-police-7j3xdcrj8">without fear</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247938/original/file-20181129-170226-1gv8baa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247938/original/file-20181129-170226-1gv8baa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=399&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247938/original/file-20181129-170226-1gv8baa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=399&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247938/original/file-20181129-170226-1gv8baa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=399&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247938/original/file-20181129-170226-1gv8baa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=501&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247938/original/file-20181129-170226-1gv8baa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=501&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247938/original/file-20181129-170226-1gv8baa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=501&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Police in the aftermath of the 2011 riots.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-august-09-clapham-junction-area-82487350?src=TuKpKBCy8uaQqcFrAaIWkw-1-0">Dutourdumonde Photography/Shutterstock.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Just as widespread anger and frustration at police was part of what triggered the <a href="http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/46297/1/Reading%20the%20riots%28published%29.pdf">2011 UK riots</a>, a crisis of legitimacy might well be the catalyst for rising violence today. </p>
<h2>What’s past is prologue</h2>
<p>History is important here. In London, 54 teenagers were stabbed to death throughout <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7117749.stm">2007</a> and <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7510901.stm">2008</a>. Then, as now, people scrambled to explain the trend, accusing “<a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1554595/Broken-families-fuelling-black-crime.html">broken families</a>” and “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2007/apr/12/ukcrime.race">black culture</a>”. But 2007 and 2008 were also times of deep distrust. The global financial crisis and the <a href="https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/7501/economics/the-great-recession/">resulting recession</a> confirmed civilians’ worst fears that the strength of the economy was compromised by the risky behaviours of financial institutions deemed “<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/hsbc-too-big-to-jail-report-george-osborne-letter-warned-of-financial-contagion-if-bank-prosecuted-2016-7">too big to jail</a>”. </p>
<p>Young people leaving school and entering the labour market for the first time <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/reality-check-with-polly-curtis/2011/oct/12/unemployment-unemployment-and-employment-statistics">were the hardest hit</a>, and today their future still looks uncertain – thanks in part to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/education-40493658">mounting student debt</a> and the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/22/jobs-travel-study-how-brexit-would-affect-young-britons-eu-referendum">end of free movement</a>. And when feelings of distrust course through society, young people who have experienced severe adversity in their lives already, or who have been let down by institutions in the past, are especially vulnerable. </p>
<p>The root of the problem is that people don’t like <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-46336772">division and uncertainty</a>. They are frustrated, angry; and with no outlet for that anger, and no legal recourse, violence continues to creep upward. Some have directed their anger outward to assault and homicide. Others have directed it inward in the form of self harm and suicide — also <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/sep/04/suicide-rate-rises-among-young-people-in-england-and-wales">increasingly prevelant</a> among Britian’s youth.</p>
<p>It’s not enough to approach rising violence as a <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/violent-crime-stabbings-shootings-sadiq-khan-london-public-health-reduction-unit-glasgow-a8544746.html">public health problem</a>, which <a href="https://theconversation.com/knife-crime-is-a-health-risk-for-young-people-it-cant-be-solved-by-policing-alone-91871">could be solved</a> with appropriate investment in social safety nets such as youth services, social care and early intervention. Government officials and institutions must also act with integrity and moral courage.</p>
<p>People need to believe that others are operating in their best interests; that violent offenders will be held accountable; and that better days are ahead. That’s why the first step towards reducing violence is repairing public trust in authority.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107483/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When people don't trust the government, the media or police, they are less inclined to play by the rules and more likely to lash out violently.James Densley, Associate of the Extra-Legal Governance Institute, University of OxfordMichelle Lyttle Storrod, PhD Candidate, Rutgers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1065422018-11-20T13:19:54Z2018-11-20T13:19:54ZWhy, even with more access to toilets, women in a Kenyan slum avoid them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246168/original/file-20181119-76134-1ovaugb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">New toilet blocks in Mathare Valley informal settlement in Nairobi.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Samantha Winter</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>About <a href="https://washdata.org/sites/default/files/documents/reports/2018-01/JMP-2017-report-final.pdf">2.3 billion</a> people around the world lack access to basic toilets. This leads to poor sanitation and about <a href="http://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/sanitation">280,000 people</a> per year die as a result. But the global sanitation crisis isn’t equally distributed. Women in developing countries are <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956247814564528">disproportionately burdened</a> by the <a href="http://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/25927/2/geelongtoiletmar2.pdf">persistent</a> lack of access to sanitation in their homes, communities, schools and public spaces. </p>
<p>Women and girls who rely on shared toilets, at schools or in densely populated urban settlements, <a href="https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2014.302525">lack</a> privacy, safety and hygiene to comfortably manage their daily toilet and menstruation needs. </p>
<p>This threatens their health. <a href="http://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/25927/2/geelongtoiletmar2.pdf">Exposure</a> to harmful bacteria in unsanitary environments puts women at risk of urinary tract infections, toxic shock syndrome and vaginal infections. Holding in their urine and faeces also puts them at <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17441692.2015.1062905?journalCode=rgph20">risk of</a> dehydration and haemorrhoids. </p>
<p>We carried out <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17441692.2018.1534256?journalCode=rgph20">a study</a> in Mathare Valley informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya to better understand women’s daily sanitation practices and what influences their decision to use facilities in the settlement. </p>
<p><a href="https://mappingnobigdeal.wordpress.com/2011/04/29/second-phase-of-water-and-sanitation-mapping-%E2%80%93-intermediary-analysis/">Seven</a> years ago there were about 144 public toilet facilities in Mathare. <a href="https://academic.oup.com/heapro/article/31/2/258/1749406">Anywhere from</a> 17 to 232 people relied on a single toilet and over 70% of residents had to walk more that 50 meters to reach a toilet. </p>
<p>Since then, there’ve been concerted efforts by non-governmental organisations and the government to increase the number of toilets in Mathare. For instance Sanergy, a social venture, <a href="http://www.saner.gy/archives/5907">has launched</a> more than 140 toilets in Mathare. But many of the existing toilets still require payment to use, between KES 3 and KES 10 per use (USD$0.03 - USD$0.10). </p>
<p>Despite the growing availability, many women still don’t always use them. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09603123.2018.1497778">our study</a> we found that about one-third of women relied on a bucket, plastic bags or open defecation at least once during the day and over two-thirds rely on those methods at night. </p>
<p>This means that its not just access that’s the issue. Many women aren’t using the new facilities because of concerns over their safety, privacy, health and ability to pay to use them.</p>
<p>Future interventions must address these problems – and not just supply toilets – if sustainable gains in this important public health area are to be achieved. </p>
<h2>Informal settlements</h2>
<p><a href="http://projects.worldbank.org/P113542/kenya-informal-settlements-improvement-project-kisip?lang=en">About</a> 6.5 million of Kenya’s 45.5 million people live in urban informal settlements. The population living in these settlements increased <a href="https://unhabitat.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02-old/Slum%20Almanac%202015-2016_EN.pdf">by more</a> than three times, from 1.5 million to more than 6.4 million between 1990 and 2014 and is still expected to keep growing. This will exacerbate the challenges women face when it comes to sanitation. </p>
<p>We collected data in two phases between 2015 and 2017. During the first phase we partnered with representatives from the University of Nairobi and female residents from Mathare to conduct in-depth case studies with 55 women living in Mathare. In the second phase we worked with female residents in Mathare to carry out 550 household-level surveys with women.</p>
<p>We found that, about 40% of women relied on public toilets for some of their sanitation needs during the day, but are unable to rely solely on these toilets. Within 24 hours, 75% of women relied on plastic bags or buckets at least once for their ablutions. They then dispose of these in open drains or rivers near their homes. </p>
<p>This is surprising. Over the last few years there have been efforts to increase access to toilets in Mathare. Notable among them are Sanergy’s <a href="http://www.saner.gy/">fresh life toilets</a>, Grand Challenge Canada’s funded <a href="https://www.grandchallenges.ca/grantee-stars/0298-01/">Banza toilets</a> and a government effort under the National Youth Service’s <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0956247816689218">slum improvement project</a>. Each of these projects focused on some aspect of increasing access to sanitation, from provision of innovative toilets to household rubbish collection, drainage cleanup, and toilet construction and management. </p>
<p>A number of factors prevent women from regularly using the facilities. </p>
<p>Women fear victimisation – like sexual assault, rape, or theft – poor cleanliness and a lack of privacy. On average, toilets in Mathare <a href="https://academic.oup.com/heapro/article/31/2/258/1749406">are shared</a> by 70 people, with many being used by hundreds of people. This makes it very difficult to maintain them.</p>
<p>We found that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09603123.2018.1497778">one or more</a> of the stalls at public toilets have missing doors or locks, are flooded or blocked, or aren’t cleaned well. Several of the public toilets, which have separate sections for men and women, aren’t always open or have closed one of the gender sections. Having to share facilities is a factor that makes women feel insecure, particularly at night. </p>
<p>The women didn’t see the toilets as safe spaces. They also don’t feel safe in the settlement. Participants said they felt unsafe leaving their homes at night, even if the toilets were located within a short walking distance.</p>
<p>Another reason women wouldn’t use the facilities is because most charge them, and they can’t afford to pay. Most toilets in Mathare charge a pay-per-use fee between KES 3 and KES 10 per use (USD$0.03 - USD$0.10). If they can afford the “family fee” (a bulk payment), then they can pay KES 100 to KES 150 per month (US$1 - US$1.50). The average household income in Mathare is about KES 8500 (USD$85), and estimated monthly expenditures <a href="http://healthycities.berkeley.edu/uploads/1/2/6/1/12619988/matharevalley_report_ucb_2_25_2012_final.pdf">often exceed</a> this amount. This leaves little or no money for spending on sanitation. </p>
<p>On top of this, we found that some women don’t have the decision making power or control over household spending to allocate additional funds to sanitation. </p>
<p>Interestingly, many of the community toilets in Mathare have separate urinals for men that are free to use but there’s no setup like this for women. </p>
<h2>Solutions</h2>
<p>When we asked the participants what would work for them, some <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2018.1519013">suggested</a> they needed more access to free urinals – one or two stalls in a public toilet facility – that they could use for urination and to change menstrual pads.</p>
<p>We also suggest that policymakers need to start accounting for other challenges to sanitation access, like strategies that increase women’s safety and privacy, especially at night. For example, <a href="https://challenges.openideo.com/challenge/womens-safety/shortlist/prakasa-lighting-tomorrow-with-today">better lighting</a> in and around public toilets or community or technological innovations to help women <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/12/india-sexual-assault-women-safety-apps">feel safer</a> when accessing public toilets.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106542/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samantha Winter received funding for this project from the National Security Education Program in the United States as a Boren Fellow, PEO International, and the Rutgers Global Health Institute. </span></em></p>Women in developing countries are burdened by the lack of access to proper toilets in their homes, communities, schools and public spaces.Samantha Winter, Postdoctoral fellow, Rutgers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1051892018-10-26T13:27:19Z2018-10-26T13:27:19Z¿Pintor o robot? AICAN es una máquina que funciona como artista autónomo<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241092/original/file-20181017-41132-xq6i9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Psicodélico, una imagen creada por el algoritmo AICAN.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ahmed Elgammal</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>En las ocasiones en las que se ha utilizado la inteligencia artificial para crear obras de arte, siempre ha habido un artista humano ejerciendo un importante grado de control sobre el proceso creativo.</p>
<p>Pero ¿qué pasaría si una máquina estuviese programada para crear arte por sí sola, sin apenas o ninguna intervención humana? ¿Qué pasaría si fuese la principal fuerza creadora del proceso? Y si creara algo innovador, interesante y emotivo, ¿quién debería recibir el reconocimiento por ese trabajo?</p>
<p>En el <a href="http://digihumanlab.rutgers.edu">laboratorio de arte e inteligencia artificial</a> de la Universidad de Rutgers hemos creado AICAN, un programa que podría entenderse como un artista casi autónomo que ha aprendido los estilos y estéticas existentes y que puede crear imágenes innovadoras propias. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="http://theconversation.com/meet-aican-a-machine-that-operates-as-an-autonomous-artist-104381">Meet AICAN, a machine that operates as an autonomous artist</a>
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<p>A la gente realmente le gusta el trabajo de AICAN y no puede distinguirlo del de artistas humanos. Sus obras se han expuesto por todo el mundo y hace poco una incluso se subastó por 16.000 dólares. </p>
<h2>Énfasis en la innovación</h2>
<p>A la hora de diseñar el algoritmo, seguimos la teoría propuesta por el psicólogo <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2010-24768-009">Colin Martindale</a>. </p>
<p>Él planteó la hipótesis de que muchos artistas buscan hacer que sus obras sean interesantes rechazando las formas, los temas y los estilos existentes a los que el público ya está acostumbrado. Los artistas parecen creer que es más probable generar curiosidad en los espectadores y captar su atención haciendo algo nuevo. En otras palabras: la innovación es la que manda. </p>
<p>Por tanto, cuando programamos AICAN, utilizamos un algoritmo denominado “<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.07068">red creativa de adversarios</a>”, que obliga a AICAN a competir contra dos oponentes. Por un lado, trata de aprender la estética de las obras de artes existentes y, por el otro, será penalizado si, al crear una obra propia, imita demasiado un estilo establecido. </p>
<p>Al mismo tiempo, AICAN obedece a lo que Martindale <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1990-98581-000">denomina la ley del “mínimo esfuerzo”</a>, según la cual demasiada innovación aburre a los espectadores. Esto garantiza que el arte creado sea innovador, pero sin despegarse demasiado de lo que se considera aceptable. Preferiblemente, creará algo nuevo construido a partir de lo que ya existe.</p>
<h2>Dejar que AICAN sea libre</h2>
<p>En cuanto a nuestra función, nosotros no elegimos unas imágenes concretas para “enseñarle” a AICAN una estética o estilo en concreto, <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-the-line-between-machine-and-artist-becomes-blurred-103149">como otros muchos artistas que crean arte de inteligencia artificial</a>. </p>
<p>En lugar de eso, hemos proporcionado al algoritmo 80.000 imágenes que representan el canon artístico occidental de los últimos cinco siglos. Es como si un artista tomara un curso introductorio sobre historia del arte sin centrarse en un estilo o género en particular. </p>
<p>Con solo hacer clic en un botón, la máquina puede crear una imagen lista para imprimir. Muchas veces las obras nos sorprenderán por su gama, sofisticación y variación. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240679/original/file-20181015-165921-1coxcl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240679/original/file-20181015-165921-1coxcl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240679/original/file-20181015-165921-1coxcl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=600&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240679/original/file-20181015-165921-1coxcl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=600&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240679/original/file-20181015-165921-1coxcl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=600&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240679/original/file-20181015-165921-1coxcl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=754&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240679/original/file-20181015-165921-1coxcl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=754&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240679/original/file-20181015-165921-1coxcl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=754&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘El nacimiento de Venus’, realizado por AICAN.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ahmed Elgammal</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/which-paintings-were-the-most-creative-of-their-time-an-algorithm-may-hold-the-answers-43157">Al utilizar nuestro trabajo previo sobre cuantificación de la creatividad</a>, AICAN puede determinar el nivel de creatividad de sus obras. Dado que también ha aprendido los títulos que utilizaron los artistas y los historiadores del arte en el pasado, el algoritmo puede incluso ponerle nombre a los trabajos que crea. A uno lo llamó <em>Orgía</em> y a otro <em>La playa de Pourville</em>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240680/original/file-20181015-165900-tshm3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240680/original/file-20181015-165900-tshm3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=600&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240680/original/file-20181015-165900-tshm3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=600&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240680/original/file-20181015-165900-tshm3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=600&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240680/original/file-20181015-165900-tshm3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=754&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240680/original/file-20181015-165900-tshm3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=754&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240680/original/file-20181015-165900-tshm3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=754&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘La playa de Pourville’, realizado por AICAN.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ahmed Elgammal</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>El algoritmo favorece la creación de obras más abstractas que figurativas. Nuestra investigación sobre <a href="https://medium.com/@ahmed_elgammal/the-shape-of-art-history-in-the-eyes-of-the-machine-6c9090257263">la capacidad de la máquina para comprender la evolución de la historia del arte </a> podría dar una explicación a esto. Dado que tiene el deber de crear algo nuevo, AICAN tiende a basarse en tendencias más recientes de la historia del arte, como el arte abstracto, que se puso de moda en el siglo XX. </p>
<h2>¿Las personas perciben la diferencia?</h2>
<p>Todavía quedaba la pregunta de cómo reaccionaría el público al trabajo de AICAN. </p>
<p>Para analizarlo, enseñamos a un número de participantes imágenes de AICAN y obras creadas por artistas humanos que se exhibieron en Art Basel, una feria anual de arte contemporáneo de vanguardia. Les preguntamos si cada obra estaba realizada por una máquina o por un artista. </p>
<p><a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.07068">Descubrimos que las personas no podían percibir la diferencia</a>: el 75% de las veces pensaban que las imágenes generadas por AICAN habían sido creadas por un artista humano. Ni siquiera se plantearon tener que distinguir entre las dos opciones. Realmente disfrutaron del arte generado por ordenador y describieron las obras de AICAN con palabras como “tiene estructura visual”, “inspiradora” o “comunicativa”.</p>
<p>A partir de octubre de 2017, empezamos a exponer el trabajo de AICAN en Frankfurt, Los Ángeles, Nueva York y San Francisco, con una colección diferente de imágenes en cada exposición.</p>
<p>En todas las exposiciones la misma pregunta se repetía una y otra vez: ¿quién es el artista?</p>
<p>Como científico, creé el algoritmo, pero no tengo ningún control sobre lo que crea la máquina. Ella elige el estilo, el tema, la composición, los colores y la textura. Yo configuré el marco, pero el algoritmo está completamente al mando en cuanto a los elementos y a los principios artísticos que genera.</p>
<p>Por este motivo, en las exposiciones en las que se mostraron las obras de arte, le otorgué el reconocimiento de cada trabajo al algoritmo AICAN. En la feria Art Basel de Miami de diciembre se expondrán ocho obras, todas atribuidas a AICAN.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240277/original/file-20181011-154539-1h4rn3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240277/original/file-20181011-154539-1h4rn3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240277/original/file-20181011-154539-1h4rn3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=602&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240277/original/file-20181011-154539-1h4rn3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=602&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240277/original/file-20181011-154539-1h4rn3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=602&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240277/original/file-20181011-154539-1h4rn3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=757&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240277/original/file-20181011-154539-1h4rn3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=757&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240277/original/file-20181011-154539-1h4rn3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=757&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Muestra de las obras de arte generadas por AICAN que se expondrán en la Feira de Arte SCOPE y en la Art Basel Miami en diciembre de 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ahmed Elgammal</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>La primera obra de arte de la colección AICAN que salió a la venta, titulada <em>San Jorge y el dragón</em>, se subastó en Nueva York en noviembre de 2017 por 16.000 dólares (la mayor parte de las ganancias se destinaron a la investigación en la Universidad de Rutgers y en el Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques de Francia).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237816/original/file-20180924-85779-15v0ety.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237816/original/file-20180924-85779-15v0ety.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237816/original/file-20180924-85779-15v0ety.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=600&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237816/original/file-20180924-85779-15v0ety.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=600&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237816/original/file-20180924-85779-15v0ety.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=600&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237816/original/file-20180924-85779-15v0ety.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=754&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237816/original/file-20180924-85779-15v0ety.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=754&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237816/original/file-20180924-85779-15v0ety.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=754&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘San Jorge y el dragón’, vendida por 16.000 dólares.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ahmed Elgammal</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Lo que el ordenador no puede hacer</h2>
<p>Aun así, en el proceso artístico de AICAN falta algo.</p>
<p>El algoritmo puede crear imágenes interesantes, pero vive en un espacio creativo aislado que carece de contexto social. </p>
<p>En cambio, los artistas humanos se inspiran en personas, lugares y políticas. Hacen arte para contar historias y para dar sentido al mundo.</p>
<p>A AICAN le falta todo esto. Sin embargo, puede crear obras de arte que después los conservadores pueden fundamentar en nuestra sociedad y relacionar con lo que está pasando a nuestro alrededor. Eso es precisamente lo que hicimos con <em>Alternative Facts: The Multi Faces of Untruth</em> (Realidades alternativas: los múltiples rostros de la falsedad), una serie de retratos generados por AICAN que nos sorprendieron por su oportuna serendipia.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240497/original/file-20181014-109242-15c13mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240497/original/file-20181014-109242-15c13mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240497/original/file-20181014-109242-15c13mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=572&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240497/original/file-20181014-109242-15c13mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=572&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240497/original/file-20181014-109242-15c13mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=572&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240497/original/file-20181014-109242-15c13mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=719&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240497/original/file-20181014-109242-15c13mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=719&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240497/original/file-20181014-109242-15c13mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=719&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>Alternative Facts: The Multi Faces of Untruth</em> de AICAN se expuso en la Feria del Libro de Frankfurt de 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ahmed Elgammal</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Evidentemente, que las máquinas puedan crear arte de forma casi autónoma no quiere decir que vayan a sustituir a los artistas. Solo significa que los artistas tendrán una herramienta creativa adicional a su disposición con la que incluso podrían colaborar.</p>
<p>A menudo comparo el arte de la inteligencia artificial con la fotografía. Cuando se inventó la fotografía, a principios del siglo XIX, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-photography-evolved-from-science-to-art-37146">no se consideraba arte</a>; al fin y al cabo, era una máquina la que hacía casi todo el trabajo. </p>
<p>Los creadores de tendencias se resistieron, pero al final cedieron. Un siglo después, la fotografía se estableció como género artístico. Hoy en día, se exponen fotografías en los museos y se subastan a precios astronómicos.</p>
<p>No me cabe la menor duda de que el arte creado por la inteligencia artificial seguirá el mismo camino.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105189/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Proceeds from the sale of AICAN&#39;s art has funded Rutgers&#39; Art &amp; AI Lab.</span></em></p>Un algoritmo llamado AICAN ha aprendido todo el canon de la historia del arte occidental y ahora crea, nombra y vende sus propias obras.Ahmed Elgammal, Professor, Director of the Art & AI Lab, Rutgers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1043812018-10-17T10:27:40Z2018-10-17T10:27:40ZMeet AICAN, a machine that operates as an autonomous artist<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240835/original/file-20181016-165894-1roqcov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">&#39;Psychedelic,&#39; an image created by the algorithm AICAN.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ahmed Elgammal</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/pintor-o-robot-aican-es-una-maquina-que-funciona-como-artista-autonomo-105189">Leer en español</a></em>.</p>
<p>When artificial intelligence has been used to create works of art, a human artist has always exerted a significant element of control over the creative process.</p>
<p>But what if a machine were programmed to create art on its own, with little to no human involvement? What if it were the primary creative force in the process? And if it were to create something novel, engaging and moving, who should get credit for this work?</p>
<p>At Rutgers’ <a href="http://digihumanlab.rutgers.edu">Art &amp; AI Lab</a>, we created AICAN, a program that could be thought of as a nearly autonomous artist that has learned existing styles and aesthetics and can generate innovate images of its own. </p>
<p>People genuinely like AICAN’s work, and can’t distinguish it from that of human artists. Its pieces have been exhibited worldwide, and one even recently sold for $16,000 at an auction.</p>
<h2>An emphasis on novelty</h2>
<p>When designing the algorithm, we adhered to a theory proposed by psychologist <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2010-24768-009">Colin Martindale</a>. </p>
<p>He hypothesized that many artists will seek to make their works appealing by rejecting existing forms, subjects and styles that the public has become accustomed to. Artists seem to intuitively understand that they’re more likely to arouse viewers and capture their attention by doing something new. </p>
<p>In other words, novelty reigns. </p>
<p>So when programming AICAN, we used an algorithm called the “<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.07068">creative adversarial network</a>,” which compels AICAN to contend with two opposing forces. On one end, it tries to learn the aesthetics of existing works of art. On the other, it will be penalized if, when creating a work of its own, it too closely emulates an established style.</p>
<p>At the same time, AICAN adheres to what Martindale <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1990-98581-000">calls the “least effort”</a> principle, in which he argues that <em>too much</em> novelty will turn off viewers. </p>
<p>This ensures that the art generated will be novel but won’t depart too much from what’s considered acceptable. Ideally, it will create something new that builds off what already exists.</p>
<h2>Letting AICAN loose</h2>
<p>As for our role, we don’t select specific images to “teach” AICAN a certain aesthetic or style, <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-the-line-between-machine-and-artist-becomes-blurred-103149">as many artists who create AI art will do</a>. </p>
<p>Instead, we’ve fed the algorithm 80,000 images that represent the Western art canon over the previous five centuries. It’s somewhat like an artist taking an art history survey course, with no particular focus on a style or genre. </p>
<p>At the click of a button, the machine can create an image that can then be printed. The works will often surprise us in their range, sophistication and variation. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240679/original/file-20181015-165921-1coxcl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240679/original/file-20181015-165921-1coxcl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240679/original/file-20181015-165921-1coxcl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=600&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240679/original/file-20181015-165921-1coxcl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=600&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240679/original/file-20181015-165921-1coxcl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=600&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240679/original/file-20181015-165921-1coxcl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=754&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240679/original/file-20181015-165921-1coxcl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=754&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240679/original/file-20181015-165921-1coxcl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=754&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘The Birth of Venus’ by AICAN.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ahmed Elgammal</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/which-paintings-were-the-most-creative-of-their-time-an-algorithm-may-hold-the-answers-43157">Using our prior work on quantifying creativity</a>, AICAN can judge how creative its individual pieces are. Since it has also learned the titles used by artists and art historians in the past, the algorithm can even give names to the works it generates. It named one “Orgy”; it called another “The Beach at Pourville.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240680/original/file-20181015-165900-tshm3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240680/original/file-20181015-165900-tshm3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=600&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240680/original/file-20181015-165900-tshm3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=600&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240680/original/file-20181015-165900-tshm3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=600&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240680/original/file-20181015-165900-tshm3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=754&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240680/original/file-20181015-165900-tshm3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=754&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240680/original/file-20181015-165900-tshm3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=754&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘The Beach at Pourville’ by AICAN.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ahmed Elgammal</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The algorithm favors generating more abstract works than figurative ones. Our research on <a href="https://medium.com/@ahmed_elgammal/the-shape-of-art-history-in-the-eyes-of-the-machine-6c9090257263">how the machine is able to understand the evolution of art history</a> could offer an explanation. Because it’s tasked with creating something new, AICAN is likely building off more recent trends in art history, like abstract art, which came into vogue in the 20th century. </p>
<h2>Can humans tell the difference?</h2>
<p>There was still the question of how people would respond to AICAN’s work.</p>
<p>To test this, we showed subjects AICAN images and works created by human artists that were showcased at Art Basel, an annual fair that features cutting-edge contemporary art. We asked the participants whether each was made by a machine or an artist. </p>
<p><a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.07068">We found that humans couldn’t tell the difference</a>: Seventy-five percent of the time, they thought the AICAN-generated images had been produced by a human artist. </p>
<p>They didn’t simply have a tough time distinguishing between the two. They genuinely enjoyed the computer-generated art, using words like “having visual structure,” “inspiring” and “communicative” when describing AICAN’s work.</p>
<p>Beginning in October 2017, we started exhibiting AICAN’s work at venues in Frankfurt, Los Angles, New York City and San Francisco, with a different set of images for each show. </p>
<p>At the exhibitions, we heard one question, time and again: Who’s the artist? </p>
<p>As a scientist, I created the algorithm, but I have no control over what the machine will generate. </p>
<p>The machine chooses the style, the subject, the composition, the colors and the texture. Yes, I set the framework, but the algorithm is fully at the helm when it comes to the elements and the principles of the art it generates. </p>
<p>For this reason, in the all exhibitions where the art was shown, I gave credit solely to the algorithm – “AICAN” – for each artwork. At Miami’s Art Basel this December, eight pieces, also credited to AICAN, will be shown. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240277/original/file-20181011-154539-1h4rn3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240277/original/file-20181011-154539-1h4rn3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240277/original/file-20181011-154539-1h4rn3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=602&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240277/original/file-20181011-154539-1h4rn3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=602&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240277/original/file-20181011-154539-1h4rn3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=602&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240277/original/file-20181011-154539-1h4rn3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=757&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240277/original/file-20181011-154539-1h4rn3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=757&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240277/original/file-20181011-154539-1h4rn3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=757&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Samples of artworks generated by AICAN that will be shown in the SCOPE Art Fair in conjunction with Art Basel Miami in December 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ahmed Elgammal</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The first artwork that was offered for sale from the AICAN collection, which AICAN titled “St. George Killing the Dragon,” was sold for $16,000 at an auction in New York in November 2017. (Most of the proceeds went to fund research at Rutgers and the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques in France.)</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237816/original/file-20180924-85779-15v0ety.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237816/original/file-20180924-85779-15v0ety.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237816/original/file-20180924-85779-15v0ety.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=600&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237816/original/file-20180924-85779-15v0ety.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=600&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237816/original/file-20180924-85779-15v0ety.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=600&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237816/original/file-20180924-85779-15v0ety.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=754&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237816/original/file-20180924-85779-15v0ety.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=754&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237816/original/file-20180924-85779-15v0ety.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=754&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘St. George Killing the Dragon’ was sold for $16,000.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ahmed Elgammal</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What the computer can’t do</h2>
<p>Still, there’s something missing in AICAN’s artistic process. </p>
<p>The algorithm might create appealing images. But it lives in an isolated creative space that lacks social context. </p>
<p>Human artists, on the other hand, are inspired by people, places and politics. They make art to tell stories and make sense of the world. </p>
<p>AICAN lacks any of that. It can, however, generate artwork that human curators can then ground in our society and connect to what’s happening around us. That’s just what we did with “Alternative Facts: The Multi Faces of Untruth,” a title we gave to a series of portraits generated by AICAN that struck us with its timely serendipity.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240497/original/file-20181014-109242-15c13mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240497/original/file-20181014-109242-15c13mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240497/original/file-20181014-109242-15c13mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=572&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240497/original/file-20181014-109242-15c13mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=572&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240497/original/file-20181014-109242-15c13mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=572&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240497/original/file-20181014-109242-15c13mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=719&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240497/original/file-20181014-109242-15c13mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=719&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240497/original/file-20181014-109242-15c13mb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=719&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Alternative Facts: The Multi Faces of Untruth’ by AICAN was exhibited at the 2018 Frankfurt Book Fair.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ahmed Elgammal</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Of course, just because machines can almost autonomously produce art, it doesn’t mean they will replace artists. It simply means that artists will have an additional creative tool at their disposal, one they could even collaborate with.</p>
<p>I often compare AI art to photography. When photography was first invented in the early 19th century, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-photography-evolved-from-science-to-art-37146">it wasn’t considered art</a> – after all, a machine was doing much of the work. </p>
<p>The tastemakers resisted, but eventually relented: A century later, photography became an established fine art genre. Today, photographs are exhibited in museums and auctioned off at astronomical prices. </p>
<p>I have no doubt that art produced by artificial intelligence will go down the same path.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>To read “When the Line Between Machine and Artist Becomes Blurred,” the first part of this two-part series on AI art, <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-the-line-between-machine-and-artist-becomes-blurred-103149">click here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104381/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Proceeds from the sale of AICAN&#39;s art has funded Rutgers&#39; Art &amp; AI Lab.</span></em></p>An algorithm named AICAN has been 'taught' the entire canon of Western art history – and now produces, titles and sells works of its own.Ahmed Elgammal, Professor, Director of the Art & AI Lab, Rutgers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1031492018-10-16T10:41:35Z2018-10-16T10:41:35ZWhen the line between machine and artist becomes blurred<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240664/original/file-20181015-165897-1503wds.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mario Klingemann&#39;s &#39;Neural Glitch Portrait 153552770&#39; was created using a generative adversarial network.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mario Klingemann</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>With AI becoming incorporated into more aspects of our daily lives, from <a href="https://www.grammarly.com/blog/how-grammarly-uses-ai/">writing</a> to <a href="https://theconversation.com/driverless-cars-might-follow-the-rules-of-the-road-but-what-about-the-language-of-driving-88824">driving</a>, it’s only natural that artists would also start to experiment with artificial intelligence.</p>
<p>In fact, Christie’s <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/algorithm-art-fetches-432-500-ny-auction-christies-181813697.html">just sold</a> its first piece of AI art – a blurred face titled “Portrait of Edmond Belamy” – for $432,500.</p>
<p>The piece sold at Christie’s is part of a new wave of AI art created via machine learning. Paris-based artists Hugo Caselles-Dupré, Pierre Fautrel and Gauthier Vernier fed thousands of portraits into an algorithm, “teaching” it the aesthetics of past examples of portraiture. The algorithm then created “Portrait of Edmond Belamy.” </p>
<p>The painting is “not the product of a human mind,” Christie’s <a href="https://www.christies.com/features/A-collaboration-between-two-artists-one-human-one-a-machine-9332-1.aspx">noted in its preview</a>. “It was created by artificial intelligence, an algorithm defined by [an] algebraic formula.”</p>
<p>If artificial intelligence is used to create images, can the final product really be thought of as art? Should there be a threshold of influence over the final product that an artist needs to wield?</p>
<p>As the director of <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/digihumanlab/home">the Art &amp; AI Lab at Rutgers University</a>, I’ve been wrestling with these questions – specifically, the point at which the artist should cede credit to the machine. </p>
<h2>The machines enroll in art class</h2>
<p>Over the last 50 years, several artists have written computer programs to generate art – what I call “algorithmic art.” It requires the artist to write detailed code with an actual visual outcome in mind. </p>
<p>One the earliest practitioners of this form is Harold Cohen, who <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/harold-cohen-925">wrote the program AARON</a> to produce drawings that followed a set of rules Cohen had created.</p>
<p>But the AI art that has emerged over the past couple of years incorporates machine learning technology. </p>
<p>Artists create algorithms not to follow a set of rules, but to “learn” a specific aesthetic by analyzing thousands of images. The algorithm then tries to generate new images in adherence to the aesthetics it has learned.</p>
<p>To begin, the artist chooses a collection of images to feed the algorithm, a step I call “pre-curation.”</p>
<p>For the purpose of this example, let’s say the artist chooses traditional portraits from the past 500 years. </p>
<p>Most of the AI artworks that have emerged over the past few years have used a class of algorithms called “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_adversarial_network">generative adversarial networks</a>.” First introduced by computer scientist Ian Goodfellow in 2014, these algorithms are called “adversarial” because there are two sides to them: One generates random images; the other has been taught, via the input, how to judge these images and deem which best align with the input. </p>
<p>So the portraits from the past 500 years are fed into a generative AI algorithm that tries to imitate these inputs. The algorithms then come back with a range of output images, and the artist must sift through them and select those he or she wishes to use, a step I call “post-curation.” </p>
<p>So there is an element of creativity: The artist is very involved in pre- and post-curation. The artist might also tweak the algorithm as needed to generate the desired outputs. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237546/original/file-20180922-129850-19fi3sb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237546/original/file-20180922-129850-19fi3sb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=313&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237546/original/file-20180922-129850-19fi3sb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=313&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237546/original/file-20180922-129850-19fi3sb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=313&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237546/original/file-20180922-129850-19fi3sb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=394&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237546/original/file-20180922-129850-19fi3sb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=394&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237546/original/file-20180922-129850-19fi3sb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=394&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">When creating AI art, the artist’s hand is involved in the selection of input images, tweaking the algorithm and then choosing from those that have been generated.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ahmed Elgammal</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Serendipity or malfunction?</h2>
<p>The generative algorithm can produce images that surprise even the artist presiding over the process. </p>
<p>For example, a generative adversarial network being fed portraits could end up producing a series of deformed faces. </p>
<p>What should we make of this?</p>
<p>Psychologist Daniel E. Berlyne has studied <a href="http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/users/furedy/daniel_berlyne.htm">the psychology of aesthetics for several decades</a>. He found that novelty, surprise, complexity, ambiguity and eccentricity tend to be the most powerful stimuli in works of art. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237522/original/file-20180921-129859-1m9n0zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237522/original/file-20180921-129859-1m9n0zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237522/original/file-20180921-129859-1m9n0zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=240&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237522/original/file-20180921-129859-1m9n0zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=240&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237522/original/file-20180921-129859-1m9n0zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=240&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237522/original/file-20180921-129859-1m9n0zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=302&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237522/original/file-20180921-129859-1m9n0zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=302&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237522/original/file-20180921-129859-1m9n0zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=302&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">When fed portraits from the last five centuries, an AI generative model can spit out deformed faces.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ahmed Elgammal</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The generated portraits from the generative adversarial network – with all of the deformed faces – are certainly novel, surprising and bizarre. </p>
<p>They also evoke British figurative painter Francis Bacon’s famous deformed portraits, such as “Three Studies for a Portrait of Henrietta Moraes.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237524/original/file-20180921-88806-2is9gm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237524/original/file-20180921-88806-2is9gm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237524/original/file-20180921-88806-2is9gm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=231&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237524/original/file-20180921-88806-2is9gm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=231&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237524/original/file-20180921-88806-2is9gm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=231&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237524/original/file-20180921-88806-2is9gm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=291&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237524/original/file-20180921-88806-2is9gm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=291&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237524/original/file-20180921-88806-2is9gm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=291&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Three Studies for the Portrait of Henrietta Moraes,’ Francis Bacon, 1963.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Three_Studies_for_the_Portrait_of_Henrietta_Moraes.jpg">MoMA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But there’s something missing in the deformed, machine-made faces: intent. </p>
<p>While it was Bacon’s intent to make his faces deformed, the deformed faces we see in the example of AI art aren’t necessarily the goal of the artist nor the machine. What we are looking at are instances in which the machine has failed to properly imitate a human face, and has instead spit out some surprising deformities. </p>
<p>Yet this is exactly the sort of image that <a href="https://www.christies.com/features/A-collaboration-between-two-artists-one-human-one-a-machine-9332-1.aspx">Christie’s is auctioning</a>.</p>
<h2>A form of conceptual art</h2>
<p>Does this outcome really indicate a lack of intent? </p>
<p>I would argue that the intent lies in the process, even if it doesn’t appear in the final image. </p>
<p>For example, to create “<a href="http://annaridler.com/fall-of-the-house-of-usher/">The Fall of the House of Usher</a>,” artist Anna Ridler took stills from a 1929 film version of the Edgar Allen Poe short story “The Fall of the House of Usher.” She made ink drawings from the still frames and fed them into a generative model, which produced a series of new images that she then arranged into a short film.</p>
<p>Another example is Mario Klingemann’s “<a href="http://enter.lumenprize.com/sites/default/files/2018/butchers_son.jpg">The Butcher’s Son</a>,” a nude portrait that was generated by feeding the algorithm images of stick figures and images of pornography. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239546/original/file-20181005-72133-165wnuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239546/original/file-20181005-72133-165wnuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=338&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239546/original/file-20181005-72133-165wnuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=338&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239546/original/file-20181005-72133-165wnuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=338&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239546/original/file-20181005-72133-165wnuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=424&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239546/original/file-20181005-72133-165wnuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=424&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239546/original/file-20181005-72133-165wnuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=424&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">On the left: A still from ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ by Anna Ridler. On the right: ‘The Butcher’s Son’ by Mario Klingemann.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I use these two examples to show how artists can really play with these AI tools in any number of ways. While the final images might have surprised the artists, they didn’t come out of nowhere: There was a process behind them, and there was certainly an element of intent.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, many are skeptical of AI art. Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Jerry Saltz <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hws1ZTlkz_I">has said he finds the art produced by AI artist boring and dull</a>, including “The Butcher’s Son.” </p>
<p>Perhaps they’re correct in some cases. In the deformed portraits, for example, you could argue that the resulting images aren’t all that interesting: They’re really just imitations – with a twist – of pre-curated inputs. </p>
<p>But it’s not just about the final image. It’s a about the creative process – one that involves an artist and a machine collaborating to explore new visual forms in revolutionary ways. </p>
<p>For this reason, I have no doubt that this is <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/c/conceptual-art">conceptual art</a>, a form that dates back to the 1960s, in which the idea behind the work and the process is more important than the outcome. </p>
<p>As for “The Butcher’s Son,” one of the pieces Saltz derided as boring? </p>
<p>It recently won <a href="https://lumenprize.com/edition/2018-winners/">the Lumen Prize</a>, a prize dedicated for art created with technology.</p>
<p>As much as some critics might decry the trend, it seems that AI art is here to stay.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>To read “Meet AICAN, a machine that operates as an autonomous artist,” the second part of this two-part series on AI art, <a href="https://theconversation.com/meet-aican-a-machine-that-operates-as-an-autonomous-artist-104381">click here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103149/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ahmed Elgammal does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Later this month, Christie's will be auctioning its first piece of AI art – a portrait created via machine learning.Ahmed Elgammal, Professor, Director of the Art & AI Lab, Rutgers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/959132018-09-11T10:34:38Z2018-09-11T10:34:38ZWomen's colleges play unique role in quest for equality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235288/original/file-20180906-190656-l1utqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Enrollment in women&#39;s colleges is up in record numbers.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/group-attractive-young-women-different-ethnics-243296779?src=FBOwgRR5s5dUHgb2DtRPYw-2-56">oneinchpunch/www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note:</em> Thanks, some say, in no small part to the 2016 election of Donald J. Trump and the momentum of the #MeToo movement, enrollment in women’s colleges is <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2018/08/13/womens-colleges-see-boost-yield-wake-2016-election">up like never before</a>. In light of this uptick, we reached out to the leaders of three women’s colleges – St. Catherine University, Bryn Mawr and Rutgers University’s Douglass College – to illuminate what the colleges do that makes them distinct. Here’s what they had to say. </p>
<h2>Gender equity through academic excellence</h2>
<p><strong>Kimberly Wright Cassidy, President Bryn Mawr College</strong></p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235457/original/file-20180907-90559-1f0pd4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235457/original/file-20180907-90559-1f0pd4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=802&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235457/original/file-20180907-90559-1f0pd4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=802&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235457/original/file-20180907-90559-1f0pd4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=802&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235457/original/file-20180907-90559-1f0pd4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=1008&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235457/original/file-20180907-90559-1f0pd4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=1008&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235457/original/file-20180907-90559-1f0pd4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=1008&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kimberly Wright Cassidy, Bryn Mawr College.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.brynmawr.edu/people/kimberly-e-cassidy">Bryn Mawr College</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Women’s colleges have by definition led progress toward equality between the sexes since their founding in the 19th century – and, I would argue, they lead it today. One reason is that women’s colleges offer an environment in which women are the focus, and the drivers, of academic excellence.</p>
<p>What is the impact of this environment? One compelling answer to that question comes from a <a href="http://www.womenscolleges.org/sites/default/files/report/files/main/2012hardwickdaycomparativealumnaesurveymarch2012_0.pdf">2012 Women’s College Coalition survey</a> showing that women’s college graduates earn advanced degrees at a higher rate than other graduates. Specifically, 51 percent of the surveyed women’s college graduates earned advanced degrees, compared to 33 percent of liberal arts and 27 percent of flagship public university graduates. </p>
<p>The impact is especially notable when one looks at achievement in traditionally male-dominated fields, including science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). </p>
<p>When Quartz magazine, for example, created <a href="https://qz.com/498534/these-25-schools-are-responsible-for-the-greatest-advances-in-science/">its list of the 25 schools most responsible for advances in science</a> – a list that tracks the undergraduate affiliations of winners of the highest recognition in the sciences – Bryn Mawr College made the list, even though that list did not account for women’s historical and <a href="https://theconversation.com/lets-face-it-gender-bias-in-academia-is-for-real-44637">present-day barriers to success</a> in STEM fields. </p>
<p>There are several critical components of the heightened academic achievement of women’s college graduates. One is <a href="https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-05-09/womens-colleges-can-close-the-stem-gender-gap">access to female-majority workgroups and female mentor networks</a>. <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1024911904627">Research indicates that these are crucial</a> to creating a sense of belonging, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5468611/">particularly in STEM fields</a>, which in turn predicts greater confidence in one’s abilities and greater persistence. </p>
<p>Another is a culture of enlarged expectations of and opportunities for women. </p>
<p>Graduates often tell me that a women’s college is the first space where they felt it was acceptable to be smart and passionate about ideas. As <a href="https://www.brynmawr.edu/promise/rachel-weissler-16">one young alum put it recently,</a> a women’s college experience “gives you the confidence to believe that you can do anything you set your mind to…It’s cool to be intelligent.” </p>
<p>Women’s knowledge and skill is not all that’s required for gender equity in the workplace, but it is a necessary condition. And it is because, as I’ve argued here, women’s colleges provide more support for these intellectual achievements that they play such a critical role in preparing students to level the playing field. </p>
<h2>What a difference a course can make</h2>
<p><strong>Jacquelyn Litt, Dean of Douglass College, Rutgers University</strong></p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235460/original/file-20180907-90559-100ll9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235460/original/file-20180907-90559-100ll9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=799&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235460/original/file-20180907-90559-100ll9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=799&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235460/original/file-20180907-90559-100ll9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=799&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235460/original/file-20180907-90559-100ll9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=1004&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235460/original/file-20180907-90559-100ll9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=1004&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235460/original/file-20180907-90559-100ll9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=1004&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jacquelyn Litt, dean of Douglass College, Rutgers University.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://ucmweb.rutgers.edu/magazine/archive1013/features/fall-2011/it-s-a-woman-s-world">Rutgers University</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/01/19/survey-colleges-finds-distribution-requirements-remain-popular-new-features">Most universities</a> require their students to complete a certain distribution of courses, so that science majors take at least a few humanities courses and social scientists do a bit of math or biology. There are few campuses, it seems, that insist on a common course for all students: Douglass College, the women’s college at Rutgers, is one of them.</p>
<p>In its first incarnation, this course was known as “Shaping a Life.” Piloted in 1994, it introduced Douglass students to the lives of eminent women through original writings. Students read about how women from different backgrounds – ranging from bestselling author <a href="http://www.amytan.net/">Amy Tan</a> to former Smith College president <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/04/obituaries/jill-ker-conway-83-feminist-author-and-smith-president-dies.html">Jill Ker Conway</a> – viewed women’s roles in family, education, work and community. They learned, for example, to distinguish the kinds of work women do at home, at school and in the labor force – something they would not necessarily be asked to think about in their other classes. An internal evaluation of the course’s impact in the late 1990s found that it increased student retention, enhanced academic performance and improved students’ sense of leadership and self-confidence. </p>
<p>In 2007, however, the course was revised to more directly address gender inequality. Called <a href="https://womens-studies.rutgers.edu/academics/undergraduate/225-academics/undergraduate-program/synopses/women-s-and-gender-studies-courses/857-01-988-130-knowledge-and-power-issues-in-women-s-leadership">“Knowledge and Power: Issues in Women’s Leadership,”</a> today’s course engages students in intimate dialogue in small sections of 25 students. For example, one group looked at the anti-rape condom invented in South Africa, <a href="https://rape-axe.com/">Rape-aXe</a>, that has been designed “to give women a stronger chance at escaping sexual assault and bring their attackers to justice.” Students discussed the limitations of technology and its inability to deal, for example, with the trauma rape survivors suffer. They questioned the product’s heterosexual bias and challenged the burden it placed on women.</p>
<p>With 70 percent of its students women of color, Douglass is the most racially and ethnically diverse unit at Rutgers-New Brunswick, <a href="https://www.bestcollegereviews.org/features/top-ethnically-diverse-colleges/">one of the most diverse universities in the nation</a>. As a result, the course also focuses on inequalities between women. </p>
<p>How do power differentials among races affect women’s power to “speak out” in the face of harassment, discrimination and sexual violence? Students learn this firsthand as, for example, a first-generation Latina student interviewed an accomplished alumna with a similar background who is now a medical school dean. After hearing the alumna describe her encounters with gender and racial stereotypes, the student saw how important it is to consider how different forms of discrimination interconnect.</p>
<p>Students’ evaluations of Knowledge and Power show that most end the course with a recognition that their voices are powerful and that while inequality exists, they possess the capacity to bring about change. </p>
<p>In the words of one alumna: “Knowledge and Power made me a better feminist. It made me a better ally. Most importantly, it made me a better person.”</p>
<h2>A mission rooted in creating economic stability</h2>
<p><strong>ReBecca Roloff, President St. Catherine University</strong> </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235461/original/file-20180907-90556-ofxdy9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235461/original/file-20180907-90556-ofxdy9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=600&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235461/original/file-20180907-90556-ofxdy9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=600&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235461/original/file-20180907-90556-ofxdy9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=600&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235461/original/file-20180907-90556-ofxdy9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=754&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235461/original/file-20180907-90556-ofxdy9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=754&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235461/original/file-20180907-90556-ofxdy9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=754&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Becky Roloff, president of St. Catherine University.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.stkate.edu/about/university-leadership/">St. Catherine's University</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The #metoo movement has intensified the volume of conversations related to equality and social justice. For those of us fortunate enough to come under the influence of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, we know they have been advocating for these issues since their founding in 1650 in central France. Neither educated nor wealthy, this order of Catholic nuns committed to “practice of <a href="https://csjcarondelet.org/our-history/">all the spiritual and corporal works of mercy of which woman is capable</a> and which will most benefit the dear neighbor.”</p>
<p>The sisters took a radical approach to their mission. They were active out in the community at a time when the majority of women religious were cloistered. When the sisters found young women who were forced to engage in prostitution to feed themselves, and perhaps a family, they didn’t judge. Instead, they took action and <a href="https://www.stkate.edu/pdfs/orientation-all-women-can-be.pdf">taught the women how to make lace</a>, creating an opportunity for economic stability for these women.</p>
<p>It was in the late 1830s that the sisters brought their mission and commitment to empowering women to America. In time, they established five colleges and eight high schools across the United States, including my own, St. Catherine University (St. Kate’s), in 1905 – 15 years before American <a href="https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&amp;doc=63">women had the right to vote</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25153853">According to historian Mary J. Oates</a>, St. Kate’s was among those “dedicated to the advancement of women through a fine liberal arts education” and aimed to become “the nation’s finest women’s college.” Indeed, this commitment to excellence led St. Kate’s to become the first Catholic college, male or female, to have a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40891017">chapter of Phi Beta Kappa in 1937</a>.</p>
<p>The impact of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet schools like St. Kate’s is best observed in the increased economic security graduates and their families have as a result of their outstanding academic experience. A <a href="http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/papers/coll_mrc_paper.pdf">2016 study by the Equality of Opportunity Project</a> examined how well colleges have built an economically diverse student body. Among Minnesota’s 17 private colleges, St. Catherine University has the highest percent of students drawn from the bottom 60 percent of median family income.</p>
<p>The study also introduces a college mobility rate, which identifies the share of all students at a college who both came from a lower-income family and ended up in a higher-income bracket. In comparison to those same Minnesota private colleges, St. Kate’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobility/st-catherine-university">ranks first in mobility rate</a> at 11.1, according to an analysis conducted by St. Kate’s. The average U.S. college has a mobility rate of 1.1. </p>
<p>At any higher education institution, graduates stand on the shoulders of those who came before them. For alums of a Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet school, myself included, we stand on the shoulders of remarkable women who created a legacy that fosters equality and social justice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95913/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kimberly Wright Cassidy is President of Bryn Mawr College, a women&#39;s college, and is affiliated with the Women&#39;s College Coalition. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jacquelyn Litt receives funding from the Social Science Research Council, National Science Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. She is affiliated with the Women’s College Coalition.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>ReBecca Roloff is the president of St Catherine University that was founded by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet.</span></em></p>Since 2016, women's colleges have seen an uptick in enrollment. We asked the leaders of three women's colleges – Bryn Mawr, Douglass College and St Kate's – to explain the attraction.Kimberly Wright Cassidy, President, Bryn MawrJacquelyn Litt, Dean, Douglass Residential College and Douglass Campus, Rutgers UniversityReBecca Roloff, President , St Catherine UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1015882018-08-31T10:41:08Z2018-08-31T10:41:08ZThrough his art, a former prisoner diagnoses the systemic sickness of Florida's penitentiaries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234350/original/file-20180830-195304-178gj7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;rect=6%2C133%2C756%2C539&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Moliere Dimanche would use anything he could scrounge up – pieces of folders, the back of commissary forms, old letters – as canvases.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Moliere Dimanche</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2007, Haitian-American artist Moliere Dimanche was sentenced to 10 years in Florida state prisons, where he ended up serving eight-and-a-half years.</p>
<p>While imprisoned, he made art – a series of pencil drawings on the back of stray sheets of paper – to document the brutality of his time spent behind bars, much of it in isolation.</p>
<p>In 2017, I was introduced to Dimanche, one of the dozens of currently and formerly incarcerated people I have interviewed over the past several years for my forthcoming book on visual art in the era of mass incarceration.</p>
<p>Often using state-issued material or contraband, imprisoned artists <a href="https://aperture.org/aperture-magazine-230/">use a myriad of genres and styles</a> to create political collages, portraits of other imprisoned people and mixed-media works that comment on abuse, racism and the exploitation of prison labor. </p>
<p>In Dimanche’s story, I see the stories of thousands of others in U.S. prisons who are using art and creativity to shine a light on their experiences and advocate for systemic change. </p>
<h2>A malignant system</h2>
<p>Florida prisons, in particular, have become notorious for their pervasive culture of neglect and abuse. </p>
<p>In 2016, investigative reporter Eyal Press <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/02/the-torturing-of-mentally-ill-prisoners">wrote about</a> the torture and routine abuse that took place in the mental health units of Florida’s prisons.</p>
<p>Central to Press’ account was the case of Darren Rainey, an incarcerated man with a history of schizophrenia who was scalded to death when prison officers forced him into a shower of boiling hot water.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/special-reports/florida-prisons/article209789104.html">According to The Miami Herald</a>, at least 145 people have died in state penal facilities so far this year, making Florida’s prisons among the deadliest in the country. </p>
<p>In response, many inside have resisted or continue to resist the inhumane treatment and prison conditions. Earlier this year, prison laborers in Florida <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/floridas-prison-laborers-are-going-on-strike/">organized a strike</a> to protest unpaid labor and brutal working conditions. (Many of the participants were punished with solitary confinement.) </p>
<p>In August, incarcerated people in Florida <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/20/prison-labor-protest-america-jailhouse-lawyers-speak">joined others across the country in a nationwide prison strike</a>. <a href="https://incarceratedworkers.org/campaigns/prison-strike-2018">Their demands</a> include being paid prevailing state wages for their labor, reforms that would allow prisoners to file grievances when their rights are violated, and a reinstatement of Pell grants in all U.S. states and territories.</p>
<p>While these strikes can certainly bring attention to dire prison conditions, the stories of incarcerated people can also emerge in creative and clandestine ways – in drawings, photographs, paintings, letters and <a href="http://www.wlrn.org/post/florida-inmates-write-poems-their-mothers">poetry</a>. </p>
<p>Incarcerated activists like Kevin “Rashid” Johnson – whose <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/23/prisoner-speak-out-american-slave-labor-strike?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other">Guardian essay</a> denouncing prison labor as “modern slavery” went viral in August – also <a href="http://rashidmod.com/">use art</a> to communicate with the public.</p>
<p>Because prisons are institutions of constant surveillance and censorship, art can serve as a crucial conduit for self-expression and as a tool for survival – a way to earn money, document prison conditions and stay connected with the outside world.</p>
<h2>Drawing to survive</h2>
<p>After Moliere Dimanche was sentenced, his family was unable to financially support him. From the costs of phone calls to commissary items to the expenses of visits to see imprisoned relatives, prisons can be a financial drain for families already struggling to get by.</p>
<p>Dimanche soon realized that he could use art as currency for toiletries, clothing, cigarettes, writing utensils and coffee. Other incarcerated men – and even some prison staff – commissioned him to make portraits, drawings and greeting cards that they would then give to their loved ones. He also designed tattoos and fashioned a tattoo gun and ink from prison supplies.</p>
<p>Dimanche ultimately created a series of fantastical, highly symbolic, allegorical drawings during his time in solitary confinement. They are bold, cartoonish representations. Filled with dark humor, they provide a sustained lens into the abuses inside Florida’s prison system.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234319/original/file-20180830-195313-1iizrno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234319/original/file-20180830-195313-1iizrno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234319/original/file-20180830-195313-1iizrno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=796&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234319/original/file-20180830-195313-1iizrno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=796&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234319/original/file-20180830-195313-1iizrno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=796&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234319/original/file-20180830-195313-1iizrno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=1000&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234319/original/file-20180830-195313-1iizrno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=1000&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234319/original/file-20180830-195313-1iizrno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=1000&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Moliere Dimanche realized that his drawings could accomplish much good: He could take care of basic needs, document his experience in prison and relay messages to the outside world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Moliere Dimanche</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While art gave him a way to provide for his basic needs and acted as an outlet for creative expression, Dimanche also became an expert of the state’s penal system and how it stifles the rights of the imprisoned. Early into his sentencing, he began to study law and to advocate for himself and others.</p>
<p>He became a writ writer – a jailhouse lawyer – filing grievances and writing briefs on behalf of fellow prisoners and himself. </p>
<p>But he believes his legal advocacy only subjected him to more punishment and surveillance. He was held in solitary confinement for much of his sentence. </p>
<p>Even in isolation, he continued his writ writing and making art.</p>
<p>In a piece called “Pills and Potions,” Dimanche depicts himself as the Monopoly Man, and converted the Monopoly board into the Florida Department of Corrections, with each property representing a different prison.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234308/original/file-20180830-195331-1inenot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234308/original/file-20180830-195331-1inenot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=819&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234308/original/file-20180830-195331-1inenot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=819&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234308/original/file-20180830-195331-1inenot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=819&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234308/original/file-20180830-195331-1inenot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=1029&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234308/original/file-20180830-195331-1inenot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=1029&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234308/original/file-20180830-195331-1inenot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=1029&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Pills and Potions’ is an allegorical drawing that depicts Moliere Dimanche as the Monopoly Man ‘bouncing around from prison to prison.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Moliere Dimanche</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“I had been bounced around so much for writing grievances,” he explained,
“I just depicted myself as the Monopoly man running around the board, bouncing around from prison to prison.” </p>
<p>“I had to find a way to laugh about some of this stuff.” </p>
<p>There’s nothing funny about some of the brutal forms of punishment depicted in many of his pieces. </p>
<p>There’s what Dimanche calls “<a href="https://incarceratedworkers.org/news/time-ice-florida-officials-torture-prisoners-freezing-strip-cells">the strip</a>” – a punishment in which guards “take your linen, they take your mattress, and they take your clothing, and they put you in a cell for 72 hour restriction and you don’t have anything in there … and it’s absolutely freezing in that cell and you have stay in it without clothing or anything the whole time.” </p>
<p>According to Dimanche, “saving a life” involves a corrections officers shackling a prisoner to supposedly take him to a medical appointment. But once he’s out of the cell and out of sight, they slam the prisoner’s head against a wall.</p>
<p>Dimanche also documents a common abuse practice in Florida where officers gas people confined to their cells. These practices <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/special-reports/florida-prisons/article188085574.html">have led to reported deaths</a>. Dimanche calls one form of gassing “Black Jesus”: Guards lock someone an isolation cell <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/prisons-are-using-military-grade-tear-gas-to-punish-inmates/">and gas them through the porthole</a>. The gas, he explains, “comes in a big black can and it’s known to make people scream for Jesus.”</p>
<p>Dimanche titled one of his pieces after this punishment by gassing, and depicts a guard gleefully spraying a hanging Dimanche. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234310/original/file-20180830-195310-s41cik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234310/original/file-20180830-195310-s41cik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234310/original/file-20180830-195310-s41cik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=778&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234310/original/file-20180830-195310-s41cik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=778&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234310/original/file-20180830-195310-s41cik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=778&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234310/original/file-20180830-195310-s41cik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=978&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234310/original/file-20180830-195310-s41cik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=978&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234310/original/file-20180830-195310-s41cik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=978&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Black Jesus’ is a searing critique of the ingrained racism of Florida’s prison system.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Moliere Dimanche</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“Black Jesus” also highlights the racism of Florida’s prisons, where an ACLU study found <a href="https://www.aclufl.org/sites/default/files/6440miamidadedisparities20180715spreads.pdf">black people are subjected to more abuse</a>. In 2017, two former Florida prison guards who were Klan members were convicted <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/08/16/ex-prison-guards-in-ku-klux-klan-plotted-to-kill-a-black-inmate-an-fbi-informant-caught-them/?noredirect=on&amp;utm_term=.e70748341829">of plotting to murder an imprisoned black man</a>.</p>
<p>Dimanche witnessed this racism firsthand. “I was in a couple of institutions where it was revealed where a lot of the correctional officers were Klansmen,” he said. </p>
<p>In “Black Jesus,” he portrays a man who is half dressed as an officer and half dressed in a Klan robe to symbolize, according to Dimanche, how each group uses force to “reinforce old Jim Crow ideas.”</p>
<h2>A connection is made – and a bond forms</h2>
<p>Eventually, another prisoner in solitary confinement put him in touch with Wendy Tatter, an artist living in St. Augustine, Florida. Tatter’s son had also spent time in Florida prisons, and Dimanche wrote to her asking if she’d be interested in seeing his art. </p>
<p>Tatter recalled to me Dimanche’s first letter – sent in September 2013 and written in a tiny font, so he could cram as much information as he could on the few sheets of paper available to him. </p>
<p>She agreed to see his work, and he started mailing her “these gorgeous original pencil drawings.” </p>
<p>She told me that each was made with a broken pencil and no eraser. They arrived “on just random pieces of paper that he managed to find” – on the backs of order sheets, Manila folders and old letters.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234311/original/file-20180830-195328-upf5j0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234311/original/file-20180830-195328-upf5j0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=365&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234311/original/file-20180830-195328-upf5j0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=365&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234311/original/file-20180830-195328-upf5j0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=365&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234311/original/file-20180830-195328-upf5j0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=459&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234311/original/file-20180830-195328-upf5j0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=459&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234311/original/file-20180830-195328-upf5j0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=459&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One of Dimanche’s drawings was made on the back of a canteen order form.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Moliere Dimanche</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The two wrote back and forth for three years until his release in 2016. Since then, he and Tatter have worked together to exhibit his work.</p>
<p>On Sept. 9 – the day that the national prison strike ends – Moliere and Tatter will host a program on mass incarceration and prison reform at the Corazon Cinema and Café in St. Augustine, Florida. </p>
<p>“Even though there’s a lot of talk about prison reform now, it’s bigger than sentencing guidelines,” Dimanche told me. “We have to address the physical abuse in prisons.” </p>
<p>Lack of transparency and access to prisons and detention centers makes this work extremely difficult. </p>
<p>Dimanche hopes that his art will open some eyes, and eventually end the American tradition of locking up, neglecting, exploiting and abusing millions in prisons across the country.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234355/original/file-20180830-195319-fc56n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234355/original/file-20180830-195319-fc56n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=446&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234355/original/file-20180830-195319-fc56n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=446&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234355/original/file-20180830-195319-fc56n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=446&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234355/original/file-20180830-195319-fc56n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=561&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234355/original/file-20180830-195319-fc56n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=561&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234355/original/file-20180830-195319-fc56n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=561&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Moliere Dimanche wears a T-shirt he designed using his prison art.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Moliere Dimanche</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101588/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole R. Fleetwood has received funding from the American Council for Learned Societies, the Whiting Foundation Public Engagement Fellowship, and the NYPL Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. </span></em></p>From solitary confinement, Moliere Dimanche started drawing on anything he could find. The result was a series of fantastical, allegorical images that depict abuse, racism and profound isolation.Nicole R. Fleetwood, Associate Professor of American Studies, Rutgers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1015152018-08-15T10:23:53Z2018-08-15T10:23:53ZSmall business owners are getting a new incentive to sell to their employees<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232006/original/file-20180815-2906-ma5oyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A bartender pours drafts at Harpoon&#39;s beer hall in Boston. Harpoon became partially employee-owned in 2014. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Charles Krupa</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The federal government <a href="https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2018/08/14/employee-owned-businesses-sba-loans/">just made it a lot easier</a> to form an employee-owned business. </p>
<p>In an increasingly rare example of bipartisan cooperation, President Donald Trump on Aug. 13 <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/13/trump-signs-717-billion-defense-bill.html">signed a defense bill</a> into law that included a popular provision that allows the Small Business Administration to straightforwardly loan money to employee-owned businesses that wish to buy out retiring small business owners.</p>
<p>This and other changes in the provisions are significant. Not only could they double or even triple the growth rate of employee-owned companies over the next decade, we expect they will help stabilize jobs in local communities as well as reduce inequality by giving more middle-class families a means of accumulating wealth. </p>
<p>Furthermore, this <a href="https://smlr.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/documents/ResearchDocs/3-21-18_main_street_employee_ownership_act_summary_5_copy.pdf">measure</a> – which <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=DWGTo1cAAAAJ&amp;hl=en&amp;oi=ao">we</a> supported with research and analysis – will be a boon to the hundreds of thousands of small businesses owned by retiring baby boomers that are at risk of closing up, putting millions of jobs on the line as well. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231989/original/file-20180815-2909-vp95cb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231989/original/file-20180815-2909-vp95cb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=388&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231989/original/file-20180815-2909-vp95cb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=388&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231989/original/file-20180815-2909-vp95cb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=388&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231989/original/file-20180815-2909-vp95cb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=488&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231989/original/file-20180815-2909-vp95cb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=488&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231989/original/file-20180815-2909-vp95cb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=488&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A wave of baby boomers choosing to retire and perhaps spend more time fishing means millions of small businesses in the U.S. will soon change hands.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">sirtravelalot/Shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Silver tsunami’</h2>
<p>The impetus behind the latest piece of legislation is a result of what some have dubbed the “<a href="https://bigthink.com/philip-perry/can-the-world-sustain-9-billion-people-by-2050">silver tsunami</a>.” </p>
<p>As baby boomers retire, more than <a href="https://www.project-equity.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Project-Equity-National-Small-Business-Closure-Crisis.pdf">2.3 million closely held businesses</a> that they own are at risk of closing down because of an inability to find someone to take over. These companies employ about 25 million people, spend about US$1 trillion on payroll a year and make about $5 trillion in sales. </p>
<p>While some of these businesses will be passed down to members of the family or others, about <a href="https://www.project-equity.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Project-Equity-National-Small-Business-Closure-Crisis.pdf">6 out of 10 are expected</a> to wind up on the auction block in the next decade because the owners need to sell out in order to retire. </p>
<p>We believe this will represent one of the largest transfers of wealth in American history. </p>
<h2>Workers to the rescue</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.project-equity.org/communities/small-business-closure-crisis/">Surveys show</a> that only a small fraction of retiring owners have a daughter or son who wants to take over the company and is competent to do so, and only a fifth of businesses listed for sale ever sell. </p>
<p>That makes selling their businesses to the workers who helped create all the value in the first place one of the best options available. It not only helps secure the owner’s retirement but also leaves behind a legacy in the local community. It has also slowly become more popular in recent decades. </p>
<p>Small businesses are sold to their managers or workers using one of three methods: an employee stock ownership plan or ESOP, a worker cooperative or an employee trust.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WqIJMxNz5C0?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Experts explain how employees can take some ownership of a business.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The ESOP, <a href="http://kelsoinstitute.org/louiskelso/kelso-paradigm/important-dates/">created in 1956</a> by the late political economist <a href="http://kelsoinstitute.org/louiskelso/">Louis O. Kelso</a>, is currently the most common way to do this because it gives regular workers a way to buy companies and has meaningful federal tax incentives. This allows the new owners to set up a trust, which secures a loan that the company itself will pay back over several years.</p>
<p>A key feature is that the company, not the workers, steps forward to provide the collateral for the loan, and as the loan is paid down, new shares are distributed to employees and managers. The workers do not purchase the shares with their savings.</p>
<p>Worker cooperatives, on the other hand, have traditionally been employee-owned from the beginning, with investments from staff and equal voting rights in many company decisions. Increasingly, the worker coop model <a href="https://institute.coop/workers-owners-conversions">is being used</a> to purchase companies from retiring business owners. </p>
<p>Employee trusts are a new form of ownership, similar to ESOPs in some ways. <a href="https://www.fieldfisher.com/publications/2016/04/watg-employee-owned-through-a-perpetual-trust">Their goal</a> is to ensure a company remains employee-owned in perpetuity by keeping the shares within the trust itself. The employees are beneficiaries of the trust, receiving payouts based on profits. </p>
<p>A few employee-owned companies include grocery chain Publix Super Markets and staffing firm Penmac – the <a href="https://www.nceo.org/articles/employee-ownership-100">two biggest</a> – as well as food companies King Arthur Flour and Bob’s Red Mill and breweries Harpoon and New Belgium Brewery, maker of Fat Tire beer.</p>
<p>We have spent the last 35 years researching this phenomenon and pulling together all the empirical studies that have been done to assess the impact, which we explore in our books, “<a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300209334/citizens-share">The Citizen’s Share</a>” and “<a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo8056093.html">Shared Capitalism at Work</a>.” The <a href="http://papers.nber.org/books/krus08-1">evidence</a> shows that employee ownership tends to make companies more productive and stable. </p>
<p>As for their prevalence, based on our recent calculations of all of the 2014 U.S. Department of Labor data on ESOPs, <a href="https://smlr.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/documents/ResearchDocs/8-14-18_analysis_of_esop_data_from_2001-2014.docx">we found</a> that about 2 million workers and managers were invested in about 5,800 closely held companies with the total employee ownership valued at $255 billion. While the average ESOP worker in these companies has an ownership stake of $134,000, our calculations are this is close to a quarter of a million dollars for workers who stay with the company for 20 years. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, many business owners aren’t aware this is even an option. </p>
<h2>Raising awareness and guaranteeing loans</h2>
<p>And that’s where the new law comes in. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231991/original/file-20180815-2921-1dapbuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231991/original/file-20180815-2921-1dapbuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=766&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231991/original/file-20180815-2921-1dapbuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=766&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231991/original/file-20180815-2921-1dapbuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=766&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231991/original/file-20180815-2921-1dapbuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=962&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231991/original/file-20180815-2921-1dapbuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=962&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231991/original/file-20180815-2921-1dapbuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=962&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand wrote the original legislation on employee-owned companies that became law.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Seth Wenig</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The provision, previously known as the <a href="https://www.gillibrand.senate.gov/news/press/release/after-meeting-with-businesses-throughout-new-york-that-support-workers-through-employee-ownership-and-pushing-for-legislation-to-help-companies-transition-to-esops-or-co-ops-gillibrand-announces-her-bipartisan-employee-ownership-bill-included-in-national-defense-bill">Main Street Employee Ownership Act</a>, was written by Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and had co-sponsors on both sides of the political aisle. It is the most far-reaching employee share ownership legislation to pass Congress in over 20 years.</p>
<p>Its most important element involves permitting the SBA to clear away many previous barriers so it can make <a href="https://www.occ.gov/topics/community-affairs/publications/insights/insights-bankers-guide-sba7a-loan-program.pdf">guaranteed loans</a> of up to $5 million to employee-owned businesses, especially ESOPS and worker cooperatives. This will make employee buyouts easier to do by significantly expanding the amount of credit available and will create more flexibility for sellers so that they can transition out of their businesses over a few years. </p>
<p>The law also tasks the SBA with providing more awareness, technical assistance and training both to the small business owners who might be interested in selling to their employees and to the workers themselves. </p>
<p>We’ve observed that past efforts to encourage employee ownership by the federal government led to large growth spurts, such as laws passed <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/1042">30</a> and <a href="https://www.nceo.org/articles/esops-s-corporations">20</a> years ago that offered tax incentives. That’s why we would estimate the latest measure to double or even triple the growth of employee-owned companies. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232007/original/file-20180815-2909-172djh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232007/original/file-20180815-2909-172djh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232007/original/file-20180815-2909-172djh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232007/original/file-20180815-2909-172djh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232007/original/file-20180815-2909-172djh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232007/original/file-20180815-2909-172djh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232007/original/file-20180815-2909-172djh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An employee at employee-owned King Arthur Flour Co. in Norwich, Vermont, takes bread from the oven.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Toby Talbot</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Measuring the wider impact</h2>
<p>The legislation’s impact could be far-reaching. </p>
<p>If it’s successful in leading more small business owners to sell to employees, it could help reduce economic inequality. That’s because the <a href="https://community-wealth.org/content/cleveland-model-how-evergreen-cooperatives-are-building-community-wealth">primary beneficiaries</a> would be working- and middle-class employees who would suddenly have a new way to build a substantial amount of capital. </p>
<p>Furthermore, it’ll help <a href="https://institute.coop/workers-owners-conversions">preserve local jobs</a> and the tax base because as we noted these small businesses often end up closing down because there’s no one to take over. In addition, employee-owned companies <a href="https://www.upjohn.org/research-highlights/how-did-employee-ownership-firms-weather-last-two-recessions">have shown greater resiliency</a> in times of economic stress, leading to fewer layoffs. And <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znjEO4TciQI">research shows</a> that these types of companies <a href="https://www.ownershipeconomy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/employee_ownership_and_economic_wellbeing_2017.pdf">offer better pay and benefits than other types of businesses</a>. </p>
<p>With real wages for most Americans flat or declining and most wealth in the hands of the richest Americans, broadening capital ownership to the middle and working classes may be the best – and perhaps the only – bipartisan road left to addressing economic inequality in the U.S.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101515/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph Blasi is the Director of the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing, which receives funding a range of foundations, including Citi Community Development, the Employee Ownership Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Open Society Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Russell Sage Foundation. Other donors are disclosed on its website and in specific conference programs. Professor Blasi&#39;s professorship is supported by an endowment set up by the Beyster Foundation for Enterprise Development. Professor Blasi is also a Senior Fellow at the Aspen Institute and assists them in developing dialogues and programs on capital shares for national leaders.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Douglas L. Kruse is the Associate Director of the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing.</span></em></p>New legislation may boost growth rate of employee-owned companies in the US, easing the impact of one of the largest transfers of wealth in American history.Joseph Blasi, Director of the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing, Rutgers UniversityDouglas L. Kruse, Distinguished Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Rutgers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/976832018-06-05T02:30:49Z2018-06-05T02:30:49ZRobert Kennedy, improbable liberal hero<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221647/original/file-20180604-175425-1uak4fy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;rect=157%2C157%2C2237%2C1805&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Robert F. Kennedy accepts the Democratic nomination as a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 1964</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/John Lent</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is something about middle children, especially in large families. They often struggle to define themselves. Robert Francis Kennedy was the ultimate <a href="https://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/The-Kennedy-Family/Robert-F-Kennedy.aspx">middle child</a>. Until shortly before his untimely death 50 years ago, he was still embarked on that struggle of self-determination.</p>
<p>Kennedy’s early career included working as a <a href="https://www.wgbh.org/news/2016/07/07/local-news/robert-kennedy-cold-warrior-liberal-icon">Senate staff member</a> for the right-wing demagogue <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/joseph-mccarthy">Sen. Joseph McCarthy</a>. It would have been reasonable to conclude that as a young conservative he could only move farther right as he aged. </p>
<p>Kennedy turned the tables on the conventional wisdom by moving — both by circumstance and by calculation — in a more liberal direction. But it was a distinctive liberalism that was shaped by his origins in a family that, despite their enormous wealth, <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/04/new-england-wasp-politics-105200_Page2.html">were regarded as outsiders</a>.</p>
<p>I’m a <a href="http://www.polisci.rutgers.edu/cb-profile/bakerross">political scientist</a> who studies American government and U.S. legislative politics and I’ve worked as an adviser to Democrats in the Senate and House. It is clear to me that Robert, much more than his older brother John, was shaped by the tribalism of Massachusetts politics in the 1950s. </p>
<h2>From tribalism via religion to liberalism</h2>
<p>For all of their money and efforts to cultivate the outward signs of WASP affluence, the Kennedys were <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/298604/the-patriarch-by-david-nasaw/9780143124078/">scorned by the first families of Massachusetts</a> the way any group with long-established wealth regards parvenues. And it wasn’t just their Irish heritage that placed them at the margins of elite Bay State society, <a href="https://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/JFK-and-Religion.aspx">it was their Catholicism</a>. </p>
<p>Of all of the four Kennedy brothers, Robert was <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/10/bobby-was-the-religious-kennedy-brother/281004/">the most emphatically Catholic</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221649/original/file-20180604-175442-53kleq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221649/original/file-20180604-175442-53kleq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=476&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221649/original/file-20180604-175442-53kleq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=476&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221649/original/file-20180604-175442-53kleq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=476&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221649/original/file-20180604-175442-53kleq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=598&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221649/original/file-20180604-175442-53kleq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=598&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221649/original/file-20180604-175442-53kleq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=598&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Kennedy family in 1931. Robert is on the left in a dark sweater.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Richard Sears, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum via Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Struggling to distinguish himself in his sprawling family – all clamoring for attention from their father, Joseph P. Kennedy – Robert sought out his mother, Rose, who took her religion seriously. </p>
<p>Competitiveness within the family also bred in him <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/04/AR2008060403483.html">a combativeness</a> that could verge on harshness that he struggled, sometimes unsuccessfully, to control. He made an early enemy of <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/rfk-enemies/">Senate Democratic leader Lyndon B. Johnson</a>, while as a junior staff member, by publicly rebuking Johnson. As a former staffer myself, I remain astonished at such boldness, even from a Kennedy.</p>
<p>Robert worked tirelessly to <a href="https://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/The-Kennedy-Family/Robert-F-Kennedy.aspx">promote the political fortunes</a> of his brother Jack, first in his campaign for the House and then, in 1952, when he challenged Henry Cabot Lodge for the U.S. Senate. </p>
<p>It was this campaign in which <a href="http://www.masshist.org/object-of-the-month/september-2016">Joe McCarthy intervened</a> to boost Jack’s candidacy. McCarthy, a Kennedy family friend, prevailed on the Republican Senate Campaign Committee to go easy on Jack and do as little as possible to help fellow Republican Lodge. </p>
<p>Bobby’s role as a staff member on <a href="https://www.wgbh.org/news/2016/07/07/local-news/robert-kennedy-cold-warrior-liberal-icon">McCarthy’s Senate subcommittee</a> on investigations would have caused the casual observer to mark him as a rising right-winger. Added to that was his service as counsel to <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/142063/robert-f-kennedy-case-attorney-general">Sen. John McClellan’s investigation</a> of corruption in American labor unions, and his conservative credentials were cemented.</p>
<h2>The transformation</h2>
<p>The change in Kennedy came with his controversial <a href="https://www2.gwu.edu/%7Eerpapers/mep/displaydoc.cfm?docid=erpn-rfk">appointment as attorney general</a> in the administration of his brother at a time of great tumult in race relations. The criticism was that the appointment smacked of nepotism and that Kennedy was <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1120.html">unqualified for the position</a>; President Kennedy’s flip response was “I can’t see that it’s wrong to give him a little legal experience before he goes out to practice law.” </p>
<p>It was the era of <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/freedom-rides">the Freedom Riders</a>, the mostly African-American young people who boarded buses to the South to challenge segregation. Their confrontation with local authorities often led to violence. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/07/robert-f-kennedy-race-relations-martin-luther-king-assassination-214021">Kennedy’s initial reaction</a> was that disorder made the United States and his brother the president look bad in the eyes of the world: hardly the reaction of a bred-in-the-bone liberal. Also, his first dealings with <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-mlk-robertkennedy/book-excerpt-the-untold-story-of-mlk-and-rfk-idUSKBN1H326N">Martin Luther King Jr. were tense</a>. Kennedy <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/martin-luther-king-and-robert-kennedy-a-fraught-relationship/2018/04/27/227e8f82-4712-11e8-8b5a-3b1697adcc2a_story.html?utm_term=.e277687194d7">authorized FBI surveillance of King</a>, saying “He’s not a serious person. If the country knew what we know about King’s goings-on, he’d be finished.” King, for his part, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-mlk-robertkennedy/book-excerpt-the-untold-story-of-mlk-and-rfk-idUSKBN1H326N">resented having to ask Kennedy</a> for help. </p>
<p>But ultimately, Kennedy’s experience dealing with the resistance of Southern governors to racial integration caused him to <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/07/robert-f-kennedy-race-relations-martin-luther-king-assassination-214021">sympathize with the struggle for equality</a>. He also recognized the importance to the Democratic Party of the black vote in the North, especially in presidential elections.</p>
<p>After his brother John’s assassination, Robert Kennedy left the Justice Department and <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/robert-f-kennedy">ran for senator</a> in New York. He won, and during this period, his embrace of the plight of minorities broadened to include <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/rfk-cesar-chavez/">Mexican farm workers</a> in their struggle to unionize. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221648/original/file-20180604-175400-1wxxmun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221648/original/file-20180604-175400-1wxxmun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=470&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221648/original/file-20180604-175400-1wxxmun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=470&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221648/original/file-20180604-175400-1wxxmun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=470&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221648/original/file-20180604-175400-1wxxmun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=591&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221648/original/file-20180604-175400-1wxxmun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=591&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221648/original/file-20180604-175400-1wxxmun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=591&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kennedy embraced civil rights late in his career; here he meets with civil rights leaders at the White House in 1963.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Abbie Rowe, National Parks Service/JFK Presidential Library and Museum</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1968, embattled Democratic President Lyndon Johnson <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1988/04/16/opinion/behind-lbj-s-decision-not-to-run-in-68.html">declined to seek re-election</a> in the wake of almost losing the New Hampshire primary to challenger Eugene McCarthy, the liberal anti-war Minnesota senator. </p>
<p>Kennedy then <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?443225-1/robert-f-kennedy-presidential-campaign-announcement">joined the race</a>, belatedly and reluctantly.</p>
<p>“I run to seek new policies,” said Kennedy <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?443225-1/robert-f-kennedy-presidential-campaign-announcement">at his announcement</a>. “Policies to end the bloodshed in Vietnam and in our cities. Policies to close the gaps that now exist between black and white, between rich and poor, between young and old, in this country and around the rest of the world.” </p>
<p>While he shared McCarthy’s <a href="http://alphahistory.com/vietnamwar/robert-f-kennedy-war-cannot-be-won-1968/">opposition to the Vietnam War</a>, Kennedy emphasized the need to combat <a href="https://tcf.org/content/report/inclusive-populism-robert-f-kennedy/">racial injustice and economic inequality</a>. His appeal to minority voters broadened, especially after his <a href="https://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/RFK-Speeches/Statement-on-the-Assassination-of-Martin-Luther-King.aspx">eloquent impromptu eulogy to Dr. King</a> in Indianapolis endowed Kennedy with an exalted status even among the most alienated African-Americans.</p>
<p>Kennedy’s own <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/bobby-kennedy-is-assassinated">death – assassinated</a> right after he won the California Democratic primary just a few months after King’s – was a crushing blow to Americans who sought to right the wrongs of the nation both domestically and in the larger world. Americans hopeful for change were leaderless. Many rejected conventional politics and sought solutions in radical movements, in drugs, and in the panaceas of false prophets. </p>
<p>For those who stayed in the fight, Kennedy’s belated embrace of social justice was readily forgiven.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97683/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ross Baker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Robert F. Kennedy, assassinated 50 years ago, began his career as a conservative anti-communist. At the end of his life, he was transformed into a liberal who championed civil and workers' rights.Ross Baker, Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Rutgers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/961852018-05-25T10:47:27Z2018-05-25T10:47:27ZSelf-cloning Asian tick causing worry in New Jersey<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220197/original/file-20180523-88002-r4bohx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The female longhorned tick, _Haemaphysalis longicornis_, crawling on a leaf.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jim Occi, Rutgers Center for Vector Biology</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>New Jersey has a new visitor, and it’s not welcome.</p>
<p>No one is quite sure how the longhorned tick <em>Haemaphysalis longicornis</em>, an invasive bug originally from East Asia arrived in New Jersey and where, exactly, it came from. But what is clear is that this new tick is capable of surviving winters in the state and is now establishing a stable population. That is bad news for both animals and people because this arthropod can bite them and transmit disease.</p>
<p>This is not the first time this species has found its way to new habitats. Over the last century, the tick has colonized Australia and New Zealand, along with other Pacific islands.</p>
<p>One of the traits that makes this tick such an invasive pest is that it is a parthenogenetic species, which means it does not need males to reproduce. Just one female tick is enough to establish a new clonal population that is genetically identical to its mother. In fact, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/5757695">clonal populations are present in Australia, New Zealand and Asia.</a></p>
<p>The tick was <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jme/tjy006">first discovered feeding on a single sheep</a> in a farm in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, in August 2017. The tick was identified by the Center for Vector Biology at Rutgers University and the Hunterdon County Department of Health, and later confirmed by the National Veterinary Services Laboratory.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219822/original/file-20180521-14970-1ebd8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219822/original/file-20180521-14970-1ebd8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219822/original/file-20180521-14970-1ebd8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219822/original/file-20180521-14970-1ebd8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219822/original/file-20180521-14970-1ebd8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219822/original/file-20180521-14970-1ebd8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219822/original/file-20180521-14970-1ebd8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A tick-infested shoreline of Long Island, New York.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/sign-warning-tick-infested-area-on-441689995?src=XXfjeTmM1BO1UG0MQNHa5w-1-13">By Elzbieta Sekowska/shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Tough survivor</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jme/tjy006">Despite treating the sheep and surrounding fields</a> with the pesticide permethrin in late September to contain the infestation, <em>H. longicornis</em> survived the winter and reappeared in the spring. Surveillance efforts by our team confirmed the tick was present in Union County earlier this year, and that the New Jersey population is clonal. This underscores the invasive nature of this new pest and the challenges we face trying to control it.</p>
<p>Similar to deer ticks, the immature larvae and nymphs of the longhorned tick are very small, similar to a poppy and sesame seed respectively, and are easily over looked on both animals and people. In Asia, the longhorned tick feeds preferentially on livestock and wild animals like deer, bear and foxes, among others. Though less frequent, <em>H. longicornis</em> also bites pets such as cats and dogs, as well as people.</p>
<h2>Spreading fatal diseases</h2>
<p>Epidemics of vector-borne pathogens have <a href="https://doi.org/10.17226/11950">risen dramatically in recent years</a>, as we have witnessed the introduction of Zika and West Nile viruses in the U.S., Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever in Southwestern Europe, and the continuous emergence of Lyme disease throughout the Northeast of the U.S. and central Europe. Ticks are the most important vectors for infectious diseases in the Northern Hemisphere and second worldwide, after mosquitoes. Thus, the introduction of an invasive species in a new habitat is worrying.</p>
<p>In Asia and Australia, the longhorned tick is known to transmit diseases to livestock including protozoans <em>Theileria orientalis</em> and <em>Babesia</em> spp., which cause anemia, lethargy and occasionally abortions. In addition, uninfected longhorned ticks can endanger the animal’s health since in large numbers their constant blood-sucking causes anemia, loss of productivity, and occasionally the death of calves.</p>
<p>In addition, <em>H. longicornis</em> has been associated with human pathogens including <em><a href="http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0078189">Anaplasma phagocytophilum</a></em>, <a href="http://doi.org/10.1645/GE-2751.1">spotted fever</a> <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1292/jvms.10-0369">Rickettsia</a></em>, and <em><a href="http://doi.org/10.3201/eid2405.171355">Borrelia</a></em> <a href="http://doi.org/10.4142/jvs.2016.17.2.207">spp</a>. These ticks also carry viruses, including <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Genetic+characterisation+of+Powassan+virus+(POWV)+isolated+from+Haemophysalis+longicornis+ticks+in+Primorye+and+two+strains+of+Tick-borne+encephalitis+virus+(TBEV)+(Flaviviridae%2C+Flavivirus)%3A+Alma-Arasan+virus+(AAV)+isolated+from+Ixodes+persulcatus+ticks+in+Kazakhstan+and+Malyshevo+virus+isolated+from+Aedes+vexans+nipponii+mosquitoes+in+Khabarovsk+kray">Powassan virus</a>, which has a high fatality rate of up to 10 percent. Of those who survive, 50 percent experience permanent brain injury and <a href="http://doi.org/10.1089/vbz.2015.1832">SFTS virus</a> (severe fever with <a href="http://doi.org/10.3201/eid2405.151435">thrombocytopenia syndrome</a>), which causes encephalitis and severe fever with thrombocytopenia, a shortage of blood clotting platelets. Although tick-borne pathogens are generally tick specific, the fact that this tick has been associated with <em>Anaplasma phagocytophilum</em> and Powassan virus, which are present in New Jersey, raises the question of whether they can acquire and transmit these diseases locally.</p>
<p>So far, there are no documented instances of <em>H. longicornis</em> transmitting human pathogens, and there is no evidence so far that they represent a public health risk. </p>
<h2>No new controls in sight</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219820/original/file-20180521-14991-16qkxn7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219820/original/file-20180521-14991-16qkxn7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219820/original/file-20180521-14991-16qkxn7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219820/original/file-20180521-14991-16qkxn7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219820/original/file-20180521-14991-16qkxn7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219820/original/file-20180521-14991-16qkxn7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219820/original/file-20180521-14991-16qkxn7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Insect repellent is the best protection against ticks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/middle-age-woman-applying-insect-repellent-1021909885?src=ao9oEy0o7QH-gIUoXOHe3Q-1-0">By MNStudio/shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although an invasive tick like the longhorned tick should be controlled and eradicated when possible, New Jersey already has a tick problem – and so this newcomer tick is not a cause for more alarm. We have four tick species that often bite humans including the deer tick <em>Ixodes scapularis</em>, the lone star tick <em>Amblyomma americanum</em>, the American dog tick <em>Dermacentor variabilis</em> and the brown dog tick <em>Rhipicephalus sanguineous</em>. They transmit diseases including Lyme disease, human anaplasmosis, human ehrlichiosis, human babesiosis, Rocky Mountain spotted fever and Powassan encephalitis.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, ticks are extremely hard to control and efforts to develop new control methods have always fallen short. The best way to protect ourselves is by using tick repellents and checking ourselves for attached ticks after any outdoor activity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96185/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alvaro Toledo receives funding from NIAID </span></em></p>There is a new type of tick spreading in New Jersey, and it doesn't need a male to reproduce. It's known to spread disease and is proving
difficult to eradicate.Alvaro Toledo, Assistant Professor of Entomology, Rutgers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/961612018-05-10T10:48:47Z2018-05-10T10:48:47ZTrump's deregulatory record doesn't include much actual deregulation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218359/original/file-20180509-34009-t1mee9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cutting red tape is a high priority, but the execution hasn&#39;t always led to results.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Trump/3931664f4baa417da1e391972a111416/2/0">AP Photo/Evan Vucci</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>One year ago, the Trump administration’s <a href="https://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/trump-war-on-regulations/">deregulatory push</a> was in full swing. The administration was preparing a proposed rule to <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060056742">repeal</a> the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) regulation, and to delay and <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060080679">repeal the restriction of methane emissions</a> from oil and gas extraction on public lands. </p>
<p>Surely these well-publicized deregulatory initiatives which the Trump administration has made a big show of taking credit for have taken effect by now. </p>
<p>Well, not exactly. The WOTUS proposal has not been finalized, and the methane extraction rule is tied up in a <a href="https://www.eenews.net/assets/2018/05/03/document_gw_03.pdf">thicket of court cases</a>. </p>
<p>President Trump’s record on deregulation has gotten a great deal of attention. He <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-delivering-deregulation/">brags about it regularly</a>. It is often placed alongside the tax cuts passed by Congress when his <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/366429-trumps-top-10-accomplishments-of-2017">chief accomplishments</a> are recounted. To listen to the president (or the media), one would think that thousands of regulations were repealed. </p>
<p>But as the WOTUS and Bureau of Land Management extraction rules indicate, the actual extent of deregulation is much more limited. At the same time, other moves to dismantle the “administrative state” have quietly been more effective. </p>
<h2>No more easy routes</h2>
<p>Early in the Trump administration, Congress used the Congressional Review Act, a statute that allows the Senate to bypass the filibuster to repeal recently issued regulations. <a href="https://regulatorystudies.columbian.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs1866/f/downloads/CRA%20Tracker%204-18-2018%20%28Resolution%20Number%29.pdf">By May 17, 2017</a>, Congress had repealed 14 Obama regulations using the CRA in a wide array of policy areas. They would add one more regulation from the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau by the end of 2017. </p>
<p>But these repeals are largely the work of Congress and frequent punching bag for President Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. And now, most Obama-era regulations are off limits for the CRA (although Congress has explored <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/finance/383751-senate-votes-to-repeal-cfpb-auto-loan-guidance">expanding its use</a>). That leaves President Trump and his administration to rely on the typical route for writing and revising regulations – the executive branch – if they want to repeal any more of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/obamas-use-of-regulation-to-make-environmental-policy-not-unusual-and-not-illegal-42875">thousands of regulations issued during the Obama administration</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218360/original/file-20180509-34038-zf8tc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218360/original/file-20180509-34038-zf8tc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218360/original/file-20180509-34038-zf8tc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218360/original/file-20180509-34038-zf8tc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218360/original/file-20180509-34038-zf8tc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218360/original/file-20180509-34038-zf8tc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218360/original/file-20180509-34038-zf8tc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218360/original/file-20180509-34038-zf8tc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In seeking to roll back fuel economy standards and other regulations, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s staff hasn’t shown the same attention to the rule-making process as his predecessor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/32342717143/in/photolist-Rh1T1c-RWf4U9-V4Xcrs-RenG4j-Rh1BKT-Rh25qB-ERurNv-25rELGh-Ssp19S-SspigN-Sw4d8r-Shfo7o-Reo2JG-Shfryd-ShfmbE-ShftRE-r9heYS-8vGwz2-Rh23mB-SspkYb-Sspgdj-Sspozo-RenHeq-T3o2LB-qu4gpp-rqKgqb-V7JDmR-roxxSu-U5LrWz-8sDtvi-8sGwmo-ShEL5N-25rERTQ-JpzTw5-QTaihm-eac2U8-8sGsxU-GTigPc-JpzRTW-JpzUFu-8sDqtn-JpzRJC-QTafPW-bRXWVF-nbGnqM-U5LqiV-r7wfNP-rqQygP-U2Uuy1-r9oDqD">Gage Skidmore</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Making announcements about a desire to repeal regulations is easy. President Trump <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-delivering-deregulation/">did so in December</a> (although his claim that 22 regulations had been repealed for every new regulation was <a href="https://www.theregreview.org/2018/01/29/lets-be-real-trumps-first-year-regulation/">vastly exaggerated</a>). Actually repealing significant regulations is much harder, as the administration is finding out.</p>
<p>An agency must start by developing a proposal to repeal a regulation. This must often be accompanied by a detailed economic analysis of the repeal. The proposal and the analysis are then sent to the Office of Management and Budget for a review. When that review is complete, the proposal is published in the Federal Register for public comment. Agencies must review the public comments, respond to them, make any changes they feel necessary to their proposal and analysis, and then resubmit it to OMB before publishing a final rule. Finally, the rule is subject to litigation.</p>
<p>To navigate this process takes time and expertise. President Trump and his Cabinet members, particularly <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/scott-pruitt-34386">Scott Pruitt at the EPA</a>, have instead tried to rush through the many steps of this process. This has meant that the last step, the litigation over regulatory repeals, has proven particularly problematic for the administration. At the EPA, courts have struck down delays or repeals of regulations <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/07/climate/scott-pruitt-epa-rollbacks.html">six times already</a>. This pattern holds across the government.</p>
<h2>Another kind of damage</h2>
<p>Part of the problem for the Trump administration is that while they have been hasty in trying to repeal regulations, the Obama administration was <a href="https://theconversation.com/promises-promises-how-legally-durable-are-obamas-climate-pledges-51786">thorough in promulgating them</a>. Over the course of eight years, Obama appointees solicited comments on their proposals, did detailed economic analyses, and built strong cases for many of their regulations. For example, the former EPA administration compiled a 1,217-page analysis done over years to buttress its fuel economy rules, while the current administration <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060077987">generated a 38-page document</a> dominated by auto industry comments to justify reviewing and rescinding them.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218361/original/file-20180509-184630-1b8cg34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218361/original/file-20180509-184630-1b8cg34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=390&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218361/original/file-20180509-184630-1b8cg34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=390&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218361/original/file-20180509-184630-1b8cg34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=390&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218361/original/file-20180509-184630-1b8cg34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=490&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218361/original/file-20180509-184630-1b8cg34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=490&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218361/original/file-20180509-184630-1b8cg34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=490&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Repealing existing regulations requires the work of government staffers who know the processes but a number of agencies, including the EPA, have lost many significant employees.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/EPA-Pruitt/048cf6fb149a4c0c9443eaacd968b18e/1/0">AP Photo/Alex Brandon</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In order to repeal these regulations, the Trump administration will have to convince courts that there are sound legal reasons to ignore all of this work. The statute that governs the creation of regulations, the Administrative Procedure Act, requires agencies to demonstrate that they are not arbitrary and capricious.</p>
<p>To do so, the Trump administration will have to rely on the expertise that lies within the federal bureaucracy. But President Trump and his appointees have <a href="https://www.axios.com/scott-pruitt-environmental-protection-agency-trump-unhappy-8507d121-946a-410d-922c-60d7de92355f.html">regularly denigrated those whose help they now require</a>. As a result, many of the most talented people at the agencies have left public service. At the EPA alone, more than <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/epa-employees-leaving-under-pruitt-11b36a220062/">700 employees have left during this administration</a>. </p>
<p>This means not only has the administration failed thus far to repeal many regulations beyond those overturned by Congress using the CRA, but their prospects for doing so in other cases are not strong. These cases include the WOTUS regulation, the Clean Power Plan to limit carbon emissions from power plants, and the recently announced plans to roll back emission standards for automobiles and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/climate/epa-cafe-auto-pollution-rollback.html">take on California over their auto emission requirements</a>. </p>
<p>Stephen Bannon <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPFpTergAGQ">listed the deconstruction of the administrative state</a> as a goal of the Trump administration. The repeal of regulations is often trumpeted as the most important sign that Trump is <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/nation-now/2017/12/20/president-trumps-successes-have-been-underreported-gary-varvel-column-nation-now/968842001/">succeeding</a>. But while the administration is failing at the piece of deconstruction they are talking about most loudly, there are signs that they are succeeding in other ways.</p>
<p>The first is the enforcement of existing regulations. While the Trump administration has ramped up enforcement of immigration regulations, it has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/10/us/politics/pollution-epa-regulations.html">ratcheted down enforcement of environment and worker safety requirements</a>. This selective pattern of <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/law-enforcement-trump-article-1.3879201">enforcing regulations</a> sends signals to firms that they don’t need to worry about complying with the law when it comes to the environment or public health.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, there has been an exodus of employees from the federal government which will likely have a corrosive long-term effect. Replacing talented public servants is not something that can be done overnight, even by a new administration dedicated to doing so. Training these new government employees will take even longer. As government becomes less effective because of the talent drain, faith in government diminishes further and a cycle of cynicism about public service is made worse.</p>
<p>The Trump administration has <a href="http://theweek.com/articles/723199/how-trump-launched-biggest-regulatory-rollback-american-history">declared war on the regulatory state</a>. But the things the administration is reluctant to take credit for, notably not enforcing the law and driving out talented public servants, are likely to have a much larger impact than its largely nonexistent regulatory repeals.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96161/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stuart Shapiro does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A review of Trump's stated war on regulations doesn't find many successful repeals. But it is hurting regulatory enforcement in quieter ways.Stuart Shapiro, Associate Professor and Director, Public Policy Program, Rutgers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/946442018-05-02T10:23:04Z2018-05-02T10:23:04ZAnak muda zaman sekarang menolak kapitalisme, lalu apa penggantinya?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216812/original/file-20180430-135817-nh5sug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;rect=2%2C2%2C995%2C663&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Generasi anak muda zaman sekarang semakin menolak paham kapitalisme. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Anak muda zaman sekarang <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/26/a-majority-of-millennials-now-reject-capitalism-poll-shows/?utm_term=.e8f05f5285ed">semakin tidak menyukai</a> cara pemimpin mereka bekerja. </p>
<p>Kemarahan mereka baru-baru ini tergambar ketika <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/3/19/17139654/march-for-our-lives-dc-march-24-protest">ribuan anak muda</a> dan yang lainnya melakukan demonstrasi tanggal 24 Maret lalu menuntut adanya kontrol senjata, hampir sebulan setelah <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/15/us/florida-shooting-victims-school/index.html">sejumlah teman mereka</a> tertembak dan terbunuh di sebuah SMA di Parkland, Florida.</p>
<p>Namun ada bukti yang semakin menguatkan bahwa anak muda zaman sekarang, yang berusia antara 18 sampai 29 tahun, memiliki ketidakpuasan yang kuat terhadap aspek mendasar sistem ekonomi dan politik kita. Secara khusus, semakin banyak yang menolak kapitalisme. </p>
<p>Hal ini mendorong kami – seorang sosiolog dan <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=DWGTo1cAAAAJ&amp;hl=en&amp;oi=ao">ekonom</a> – bertanya-tanya bagaimana anak muda mendesain kembali sistem ekonomi jika mereka diberi kesempatan. Berdasarkan survei terkini, jawaban mereka seharusnya membuat para politisi pendukung status quo untuk berpikir ulang tentang kebijakan ekonomi mereka.</p>
<h2>Menolak kapitalisme</h2>
<p>Awalnya, kami ingin memahami lebih bagaimana perasaan anak muda terhadap sistem ekonomi saat ini. </p>
<p>Jadi, kami mulai dengan mengamati sebuah <a href="http://iop.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/content/160423_Harvard%20IOP_Spring%202016_TOPLINE_u.pdf">survei dari Harvard University di tahun 2016</a> yang menemukan bahwa 51% anak muda Amerika yang berusia 18 sampai 29 tahun tidak lagi mendukung kapitalisme. Hanya 42% yang mengatakan mereka mendukungnya, sementara hanya 19% yang mau menyebut diri mereka kapitalis. </p>
<p>Meskipun kenyataan bahwa anak muda dari generasi manapun memiliki kecenderungan untuk memberikan sedikit dukungan pada sistem ekonomi dan politik yang berkuasa mungkin saja benar dan kondisi akan berubah ketika mereka bertambah umur, survei terakhir mengenai topik ini menunjukkan bahwa ada sebuah fenomana baru yang dirasakan anak muda zaman sekarang. Sebuah <a href="http://www.aei.org/publication/an-enduring-culture-of-free-enterprise/">survei di tahun 2010</a> menunjukkan bahwa hanya 38% dari anak muda yang memiliki pandangan negatif terhadap kapitalisme – dan hasil ini muncul tepat setelah krisis finansial dan ekonomi terburuk setelah Era Depresi Besar, yang <a href="https://d-nb.info/1011870347/34">menimpa anak-anak muda</a> cukup parah.</p>
<p><iframe id="FpERj" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/FpERj/6/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Lalu bagaimana kita memahami ini semua? Apa itu berarti mereka lebih memilih sistem sosialisme, ketika pemerintah secara aktif mengatur dan mencampuri kegiatan ekonomi dan membatasi pilihan individu?</p>
<p>Sejauh ini tidak jelas. Penelitian dari Harvard menunjukkan hanya 33% yang mengatakan mereka memilih sosialisme. Sebuah <a href="http://reason.com/poll">survei terpisah</a> di tahun 2015 yang dilakukan oleh kelompok konservatif Reason-Rupe menemukan bahwa generasi muda dengan umur antara 18 sampai 24 tahun memiliki pandangan lebih mendukung sosialisme ketimbang kapitalisme. </p>
<p>Pandangan mereka bertentangan dengan pandangan generasi orang tua, yang secara konsisten mengatakan bahwa mereka memilih kapitalisme di survei-survei dengan suara marjin yang cukup besar – dan semakin bertambah jumlahnya ketika umur mereka bertambah. Namun, jumlah yang mempertanyakan prinsip kapitalisme tetap saja jumlahnya paling tinggi setidaknya dalam 80 tahun semenjak survei untuk topik semacam ini dilakukan. </p>
<p>Untuk memastikan, pertanyaan dalam survei tersebut berbeda antara satu tempat dengan tempat lainnya, dan ukuran sampel tidak selalu cukup besar untuk membuat kesimpulan. </p>
<p>Namun hasilnya tetap sama yaitu generasi anak muda adalah bagian dari barisan depan rakyat Amerika yang mulai kehilangan keyakinannya terhadap kapitalisme dan bersiap untuk menyambut sesuatu yang baru. </p>
<p><iframe id="PZGWv" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/PZGWv/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Tapi apa yang mereka inginkan?</h2>
<p>Jadi, jika anak muda semakin menolak kapitalisme sedangkan mereka tidak yakin terhadap sosialime, apa yang mereka inginkan?</p>
<p>Untuk menjawab ini, kami perlu menelusuri apa yang tidak memuaskan dari sistem kapitalisme </p>
<p>Sebuah <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/26/a-majority-of-millennials-now-reject-capitalism-poll-shows/?utm_term=.e8f05f5285ed">diskusi yang menindaklanjuti</a> penelitian Harvard menyimpulkan bahwa banyak dari anak muda ini yang merasakan bahwa “kapitalisme tidak adil dan tidak melibatkan banyak orang meskipun mereka bekerja keras”. Sebuah survei pada tahun 2012 <a href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/01/11/rising-share-of-americans-see-conflict-between-rich-and-poor/">oleh Pew Research Center menemukan</a> bahwa 71% dari mereka yang berusia 18 sampai 34 tahun merasa adanya konflik yang kuat antara yang miskin dan yang kaya pada masyarakat Amerika. </p>
<p>Sebagian besar anak muda mengatakan mereka percaya bahwa ada orang yang mendapatkan sesuatu karena mereka memiliki sesuatu entah karena “mereka kenal seseorang atau mereka terlahir dari orang tua yang kaya.”</p>
<p>Pandangan terhadap ketidaksetaraan ini tertanam di dalam sistem ekonomi Amerika milik orang partai Republik atau Demokrat, Independent atau golongan konversatif, moderat dan liberal. Bagi kami, hal ini menunjukkan alasan penting mengapa anak muda kehilangan keyakinannya terhadap kapitalisme adalah karena sistem tersebut telah kehilangan kemampuannya untuk bersikap adil. Namun mereka tampaknya tidak berpikir bahwa sebuah sistem alternatif lainnya seperti sosialisme bisa menyelesaikan masalah.</p>
<p>Kita bisa memulai memikirkan apa yang mungkin saja berhasil di pikiran mereka dengan mengamati <a href="https://www.nceo.org/assets/pdf/articles/PPP_results_employee_ownership.pdf">survei tahun 2015 oleh Public Policy Polling</a>, yang menanyakan pada narasumbernya pandangan mereka terhadap perusahaan yang dimiliki karyawan dan campur tangan pemerintah untuk mendorong keberadaan perusahaan dengan kepemilikan semacam itu.</p>
<p>Survei tersebut menemukan bahwa 75% dari responden yang berusia 18 sampai 29 tahun mendukung ini, lebih dari kelompok usia yang lain, sementara itu 83% mengatakan konsep perusahaan yang dimiliki karyawan adalah konsep yang sangat Amerika sama seperti pai Apel, hot dog dan baseball. </p>
<p>Jadi survei-survei ini menunjukkan bahwa anak muda bukannya tidak menginginkan berkurangnya kapitalisme, mereka bahkan menginginkannya lebih. Mereka hanya ingin memastikan kalau kesempatan untuk berbagi menjadi lebih luas, seperti misalnya dengan membuat kita lebih mudah menjadi kapitalis dan kemudian membagi kekayaannya yang kita sama-sama bangun. </p>
<p>Ketika kami bertemu generasi zaman sekarang dalam ruang kelas, kami dikejutkan oleh kuatnya dukungan atas konsep ini di dalam kelas ekonomi dan tata kelola pemerintahan. </p>
<p>Survei lainnya yang menunjukkan keinginan untuk bentuk yang lebih inklusif dari kapitalisme semakin banyak ditemui. Sebuah <a href="http://news.gallup.com/reports/199961/state-american-workplace-report-2017.aspx#aspnetForm">survei tentang tempat bekerja di Amerika pada tahun 2016</a> menemukan bahwa 40% pekerja Amerika akan meninggalkan perusahaan mereka untuk bekerja di perusahaan lain yang menerapkan sistem berbagi keuntungan dengan pekerjanya. </p>
<p>Akhir-akhir ini menjadi lebih mudah untuk bekerja di perusahaan-perusahaan semacam itu karena semakin banyak perusahaan di Amerika yang mengakui keberhasilan kepemilikan saham perusahaan oleh karyawan, dikarenakan oleh kemampuannya untuk <a href="http://papers.nber.org/books/krus08-1">mengurangi keluar masuknya pegawai (<em>turnover</em>)</a> dan <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/search/node/blasi">meningkatkan kinerja ekonomi</a>. Dan baru tahun lalu, sebuah <a href="https://www.certifiedeo.com/about_us">perusahaan di Lembah Silicon</a> menawarkan sertifikat bagi perusahaan yang dimiliki oleh karyawan untuk membangun “ekonomi yang dimiliki oleh karyawan”. </p>
<h2>Menargetkan ekonomi</h2>
<p>Apa yang orang lihat pada tanggal 24 Maret adalah sebuah kekuatan politik yang energik, dinamis dan kuat di Amerika. </p>
<p>Saat ini gerakan ini berfokus pada kontrol kepemilikan senjata. Dan kekuatan ini mungkin akan berpaling selanjutnya pada struktur perusahaan dan sistem ekonomi yang telah mengakibatkan melebarnya ketimpangan. </p>
<p>Sama seperti anggota parlemen mungkin ingin memikirkan ulang pandangan mereka terhadap hak-hak atas kepemilikan senjata, mereka juga mungkin akan menengok kembali pemahaman mereka mengenai seperti apa kapitalisme itu. </p>
<p><iframe id="z4GKq" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/z4GKq/4/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94644/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph Blasi bekerja di Rutgers University sebagai profesor atas dukungan Beyster Foundation. Dia juga berafiliasi dengan Aspen Institute sebagai Senior Fellow. Dia mendapat dana dari W.K. Kellogg Foundation untuk melakukan penelitian.
Untuk penelitian buku dari University of Chicago, dia mendapat dana dari Rockefeller Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation dan Employee Ownership Foundation </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Douglas L. Kruse bekerja di Rutgers University sebagai profesor dengan dukungan dari Beyster Foundation. Dirinya juga berafiliasi dengan Study of Labor (IZA) di Bonn sebagai peneliti. Dia mendapat dana dari W.K. Kellogg Foundation untuk melakukan penelitian. Untuk penelitian buku dari University of Chicago, dia mendapat dana dari Rockefeller Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation dan Employee Ownership Foundation.</span></em></p>Protes anak muda Amerika di bulan Maret lalu menunjukkan ketidakpuasan mereka terhadap para pemimpin. Survei terkini menunjukkan bahwa agenda mereka selanjutnya adalah perubahan sistem ekonomi.Joseph Blasi, J. Robert Beyster Distinguished Professor, Director of the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing, School of Management and Labor Relations, and Senior Fellow, The Aspen Institute, Rutgers UniversityDouglas L. Kruse, Distinguished Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Rutgers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/942472018-04-04T10:47:46Z2018-04-04T10:47:46ZToday's youth reject capitalism, but what do they want to replace it?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212860/original/file-20180402-189821-131rfk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Today&#39;s youth are increasingly rejecting capitalism.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Phil Sears</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Today’s youth <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/26/a-majority-of-millennials-now-reject-capitalism-poll-shows/?utm_term=.e8f05f5285ed">are increasingly unhappy</a> with the way their elders are running the world. </p>
<p>Their ire was most recently expressed when <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/3/19/17139654/march-for-our-lives-dc-march-24-protest">thousands of teenagers</a> and others across the country marched on March 24 demanding more gun control, a little over a month after more than <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/15/us/florida-shooting-victims-school/index.html">a dozen of their peers</a> were shot and killed at a high school in Parkland, Florida.</p>
<p>But there’s growing evidence that today’s young adults, ranging in age from 18 to 29 or so, are strongly dissatisfied with other fundamental aspects of our political and economic system. Specifically, growing numbers are rejecting capitalism. </p>
<p>This led us – a sociologist and an <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=DWGTo1cAAAAJ&amp;hl=en&amp;oi=ao">economist</a> – to wonder how would young people redesign the economic system if they could. The answer, based on recent surveys, should make any status-quo politician seriously rethink their economic policies.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212857/original/file-20180402-189804-1tertn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212857/original/file-20180402-189804-1tertn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212857/original/file-20180402-189804-1tertn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212857/original/file-20180402-189804-1tertn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212857/original/file-20180402-189804-1tertn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212857/original/file-20180402-189804-1tertn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212857/original/file-20180402-189804-1tertn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Demonstrators march through Cincinnati during the March for Our Lives protest for gun legislation and school safety.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/John Minchillo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Rejecting capitalism</h2>
<p>We first wanted to better understand how young people feel about the current economic system. </p>
<p>So we started by examining a <a href="http://iop.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/content/160423_Harvard%20IOP_Spring%202016_TOPLINE_u.pdf">troubling 2016 Harvard University survey</a> that found that 51 percent of American youth aged 18 to 29 no longer support capitalism. Only 42 percent said they back it, while just 19 percent were willing to call themselves “capitalists.” </p>
<p>While it may be true that young people of any generation tend to have less support for incumbent economic and political systems and tend to change their views as they age, past polls on the topic suggest this is a new phenomenon felt especially by today’s youth. A <a href="http://www.aei.org/publication/an-enduring-culture-of-free-enterprise/">2010 Gallop poll</a> showed that only 38 percent of young people had a negative view of capitalism – and that was right after the worst financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression, which <a href="https://d-nb.info/1011870347/34">hit young people</a> especially hard.</p>
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<p>What can we make of this? Do they prefer socialism, in which the government more actively regulates and intervenes in the economy and restricts individual choice? </p>
<p>It’s unclear. The Harvard poll showed just 33 percent said they favor socialism. A <a href="http://reason.com/poll">separate poll</a>, however, conducted in 2015 by conservative-leaning Reason-Rupe, found that young adults aged 18 to 24 have a slightly more favorable view of socialism than capitalism. </p>
<p>Their views contrast markedly with their older peers, who consistently tell pollsters they prefer capitalism by wide margins – more so as their age climbs. Still, the share of the overall population that questions capitalism’s core precepts is around the highest in at least 80 years of polling on the topic. </p>
<p>To be sure, the questions pollsters ask Americans vary significantly from poll to poll, and sample sizes aren’t always large enough to draw firm conclusions. </p>
<p>All the same, the data suggest that today’s young people are part of a vanguard of Americans losing faith in capitalism and ready to embrace something new. </p>
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<h2>But what do they want?</h2>
<p>So if young people are increasingly rejecting capitalism but they’re ambivalent about socialism, what do they want? </p>
<p>To answer this, we need to explore what about capitalism they find so unsatisfying. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/26/a-majority-of-millennials-now-reject-capitalism-poll-shows/?utm_term=.e8f05f5285ed">follow-up focus group</a> to the Harvard study concluded that many of these young people feel that “capitalism was unfair and left people out despite their hard work.” A 2012 survey by the <a href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/01/11/rising-share-of-americans-see-conflict-between-rich-and-poor/">Pew Research Center found</a> that 71 percent of those 18-34 years of age perceive strong conflicts between the rich and the poor in American society. </p>
<p>A majority of young people said they believe that those with means got there because “they know the right people or were born into wealthy families.” </p>
<p>These views on the inequality inherent in the American economic system command majorities of Republicans, Democrats, Independents, conservatives, moderates and liberals. To us, this suggests the critical reason young people have lost faith in capitalism is that it has lost its ability to be fair. But they don’t seem to think an alternate system such as socialism can fix the problem.</p>
<p>Rather, we can begin to piece together what might work, in their view, by examining a <a href="https://www.nceo.org/assets/pdf/articles/PPP_results_employee_ownership.pdf">2015 survey by Public Policy Polling</a>, which asked participants their views on employee-owned companies and government intervention to encourage them. </p>
<p>The poll found that 75 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds support this, far more than every other age category, while 83 percent said employee-owned companies are as American as apple pie, hot dogs and baseball. </p>
<p>So these polls in a way suggest young people don’t want less capitalism, they want more of it. They just want to make sure it’s shared more broadly, such as by making it easier for more of us to become capitalists and share in the wealth we collectively create. </p>
<p>As two professors meeting this generation daily in our classrooms, we have been surprised by the strong support for these concepts in our college courses on economics and corporate governance.</p>
<p>Other surveys suggest that the desire for a more inclusive form of capitalism is becoming more widely held. A <a href="http://news.gallup.com/reports/199961/state-american-workplace-report-2017.aspx#aspnetForm">2016 Gallup State of the American Workplace</a> survey found that 40 percent of all American workers would leave their company to work for one that had profit-sharing.</p>
<p>And it’s becoming increasingly easy to do that as more companies in the U.S. embrace employee ownership in one form or another, some drawn by its <a href="http://papers.nber.org/books/krus08-1">ability to reduce turnover</a> and <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/search/node/blasi">improve economic performance</a>. And just last year, a <a href="https://www.certifiedeo.com/about_us">company started up in Silicon Valley</a> offering certification of employee-owned businesses “to build an employee-owned economy.” </p>
<h2>Gunning for the economy</h2>
<p>What Americans witnessed on March 24 was an energetic, dynamic and powerful new political force in America.</p>
<p>Right now it’s focused on guns. But this force may well turn its attention to the structure of corporations and an economic system that has led to ever-widening levels of inequality. </p>
<p>Just as lawmakers may want to rethink their views on gun rights, they may also want to begin re-examining their understanding of what capitalism is supposed to look like. </p>
<p><iframe id="z4GKq" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/z4GKq/4/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94247/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph Blasi is affiliated with Rutgers University as a professor.
I also have an affiliation as a Senior Fellow with the The Aspen Institute.
I am currently co-principal investigator of a W.K. Kellogg Foundation research grant on employee ownership and modest income employees. The National Bureau for Economic Research Shared Capitalism Project received funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the Employee Ownership Foundation for our University of Chicago book&#39;s research. The Institute of which I serve as director, the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing receives funding from a number of foundations and individual donors to support fellowships and conferences in this area. The professorship I hold was endowed by the Beyster Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Douglas Kruse is affiliated with Rutgers University as a professor. I also have an affiliation as a Research Fellow of the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn. I am currently co-principal investigator of a W.K. Kellogg Foundation research grant on employee ownership and modest income employees. The National Bureau for Economic Research Shared Capitalism Project received funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the Employee Ownership Foundation for our University of Chicago book&#39;s research. The Institute of which I serve as associate director, the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing receives funding from a number of foundations and individual donors to support fellowships and conferences in this area. I am a Beyster Faculty Fellow at Rutgers supported by the Beyster Foundation.</span></em></p>The recent March for Our Lives showed just how unsatisfied American youth are with their leaders. Recent polls suggest the economic system may be the next item on their agenda.Joseph Blasi, J. Robert Beyster Distinguished Professor and Director of the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing, School of Management and Labor Relations, Rutgers UniversityDouglas L. Kruse, Distinguished Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Rutgers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/897402018-01-11T15:12:01Z2018-01-11T15:12:01ZIs warming in the Arctic behind this year's crazy winter weather?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201651/original/file-20180111-101511-sa3hd1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Seriously cold: The &#39;bomb cyclone&#39; freezes a fountain in New York City.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Mark Lennihan</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Damage from extreme weather events during 2017 racked up the <a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions">biggest-ever bills for the U.S.</a> Most of these events involved conditions that align intuitively with global warming: heat records, drought, wildfires, coastal flooding, hurricane damage and heavy rainfall. </p>
<p>Paradoxical, though, are possible ties between climate change and the recent spate of frigid weeks in eastern North America. A very new and “hot topic” in climate change research is the notion that rapid warming and wholesale melting of the Arctic may be playing a role in causing persistent cold spells. </p>
<p>It doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to suppose that losing <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/2013RG000431">half the Arctic sea-ice cover in only 30 years</a> might be wreaking havoc with the weather, but exactly how is not yet clear. As a research atmospheric scientist, I <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-melting-arctic-demands-more-not-less-research-on-earth-science-46118">study</a> how <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-melting-arctic-and-weird-weather-the-plot-thickens-37314">warming in the Arctic is affecting temperature regions around the world</a>. Can we say changes to the Arctic driven by global warming have had a role in the freakish winter weather North America has experienced? </p>
<h2>A ‘dipole’ of abnormal temperatures</h2>
<p>Weird and destructive weather was in the news almost constantly during 2017, and 2018 seems to be following the same script. Most U.S. Easterners <a href="https://ny.curbed.com/2018/1/3/16844890/winter-storm-2018-new-york-bomb-cyclone-snow">shivered their way through the end of 2017</a> into the New Year, while Westerners longed for rain to dampen parched soils and extinguish wildfires. Blizzards have plagued the Eastern Seaboard – notably the “bomb cyclone” storm on Jan. 4, 2018 – while California’s Sierra Nevada stand nearly bare of snow. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201548/original/file-20180110-46706-1e6gl5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201548/original/file-20180110-46706-1e6gl5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201548/original/file-20180110-46706-1e6gl5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=648&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201548/original/file-20180110-46706-1e6gl5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=648&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201548/original/file-20180110-46706-1e6gl5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=648&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201548/original/file-20180110-46706-1e6gl5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=814&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201548/original/file-20180110-46706-1e6gl5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=814&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201548/original/file-20180110-46706-1e6gl5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=814&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A study in contrasts: Warming near Alaska and the Pacific Ocean are ‘ingredients’ to a weather pattern where cold air from the Arctic plunges deep into North America.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=91517">NASA Earth Observatory</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This story is becoming a familiar one, as similar conditions have played out in four of the past five winters. Some politicians in Washington D.C., <a href="https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2017-12-29-trump-tweet-global-warming-weather-climate">including President Trump</a>, have used the unusual cold to question global warming. But if they looked at the big picture, they’d see that eastern cold spells are a relative fluke in the Northern Hemisphere as a whole and that most areas are warmer than normal. </p>
<p>A warm, dry western North America occurring in combination with a cold, snowy east is not unusual, but the prevalence and persistence of this pattern in recent years have piqued the interests of climate researchers. </p>
<p>The jet stream – a fast, upper-level river of wind that encircles the Northern Hemisphere – plays a critical role. When the jet stream swoops far north and south in a big wave, extreme conditions can result. During the past few weeks, a big swing northward, forming what’s called a “ridge” of persistent atmospheric pressure, persisted off the West Coast along with a deep southward dip, or a “trough,” over the East. </p>
<p>New terms have been coined to describe these stubborn features: <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/2016JD025116">“The North American Winter Temperature Dipole,”</a> the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1501344">“Ridiculously Resilient Ridge”</a> over the West, and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-melting-arctic-and-weird-weather-the-plot-thickens-37314">“Terribly Tenacious Trough”</a> in the East. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201541/original/file-20180110-46712-s7k7xs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201541/original/file-20180110-46712-s7k7xs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201541/original/file-20180110-46712-s7k7xs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=260&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201541/original/file-20180110-46712-s7k7xs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=260&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201541/original/file-20180110-46712-s7k7xs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=260&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201541/original/file-20180110-46712-s7k7xs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=327&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201541/original/file-20180110-46712-s7k7xs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=327&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201541/original/file-20180110-46712-s7k7xs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=327&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">While the eastern U.S. suffered very cold temperatures in the recent cold snap, much of the rest of the Northern Hemisphere saw higher-than-average air temperatures.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/">NOAA</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Regardless what it’s called, this dipole pattern – abnormally high temperatures over much of the West along with chilly conditions in the East – has dominated North American weather in four of the past five winters. January 2017 was a stark exception, when a strong El Niño flipped the ridge-trough pattern, dumping record-breaking rain and snowpack on California while the east enjoyed a mild month. </p>
<p>Two other important features are conspicuous in the dipole temperature pattern: extremely warm temperatures in the Arctic near Alaska and warm ocean temperatures in the eastern Pacific. Several <a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/8/084016/meta">new studies</a> point to these “ingredients” as key to the recent years with a persistent dipole.</p>
<h1>It takes two to tango</h1>
<p>What role does warming – specifically the warming ocean and air temperatures in the Arctic – play in this warm-West/cool-East weather pattern? The explanation goes like this. </p>
<p>Pacific Ocean temperatures fluctuate naturally owing to short-lived phenomena such as El Niño/La Niña and <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1015820616384">longer, decades-length patterns</a>. Scientists have long recognized that <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25323549">those variations affect weather patterns</a> across North America and beyond.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201552/original/file-20180110-46706-1x2d6qk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201552/original/file-20180110-46706-1x2d6qk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201552/original/file-20180110-46706-1x2d6qk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=334&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201552/original/file-20180110-46706-1x2d6qk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=334&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201552/original/file-20180110-46706-1x2d6qk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=334&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201552/original/file-20180110-46706-1x2d6qk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=419&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201552/original/file-20180110-46706-1x2d6qk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=419&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201552/original/file-20180110-46706-1x2d6qk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=419&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">When a persistent area of atmospheric pressure stays in the western U.S., air from the Arctic pours into the U.S, causing a split between the warm and dry West and the cold East.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4b/The_Ridiculously_Resilient_Ridge.pdf/page1-1200px-The_Ridiculously_Resilient_Ridge.pdf.jpg">Mesocyclone2014 and David Swain</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The new twist in this story is that the Arctic has been warming at at least double the pace of the rest of the globe, meaning that the difference in temperature between the Arctic and areas farther south has been shrinking. This matters because the north/south temperature difference is one of the main drivers of the jet stream. The jet stream creates the high- and low-pressure systems that dictate our blue skies and storminess while also steering them. Anything that affects the jet stream will also affect our weather.</p>
<p>When ocean temperatures off the West Coast of North America are warmer than normal, as they have been most of the time since winter 2013, the jet stream tends to form a ridge of high pressure along the West Coast, causing storms to be diverted away from California and leaving much of the West high and dry. </p>
<p>If these warm ocean temperatures occur in combination with abnormally warm conditions near Alaska, the extra heat from the Arctic can intensify the ridge, causing it to reach farther northward, become more persistent, and pump even more heat into the region near Alaska. And in recent years, Alaska has experienced periods of record warm temperatures, owing in part to reduced sea ice.</p>
<p>My colleagues and I have called this combination of natural and climate change-related effects “<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-17-0006.1">It Takes Two to Tango</a>,” a concept that may help explain the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge observed frequently since 2013. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-01907-4">Several</a> <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2517">new</a> <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/8/084016">studies</a> support this human-caused boost of a natural pattern, though <a href="https://apnews.com/fbafc62d4a81492fb0e54bac3329f81b/US-cold-snap-was-a-freak-of-nature,-quick-analysis-finds">controversy still exists</a> regarding the mechanisms linking rapid Arctic warming with <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/wcc.474">weather patterns farther south in the mid-latitudes</a>.</p>
<h2>More extreme weather ahead?</h2>
<p>In response to the strengthened western ridge of atmospheric pressure, the winds of the jet stream usually also form a deeper, stronger trough downstream. Deep troughs act like an open refrigerator door, allowing frigid Arctic air to plunge southward, bringing misery to areas ill-prepared to handle it. Snowstorms in Texas, ice storms in Georgia and chilly snowbirds in Florida can all be blamed on the Terribly Tenacious Trough of December 2017 and January 2018. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201652/original/file-20180111-101495-di88qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201652/original/file-20180111-101495-di88qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201652/original/file-20180111-101495-di88qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=374&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201652/original/file-20180111-101495-di88qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=374&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201652/original/file-20180111-101495-di88qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=374&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201652/original/file-20180111-101495-di88qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=470&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201652/original/file-20180111-101495-di88qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=470&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201652/original/file-20180111-101495-di88qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=470&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cold weather from the Arctic combined with warm tropical air fueled a storm that produced well over a foot of snow and spots of flooding in Boston.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Michael Dwyer</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Adding icing on the cake is the tendency for so-called “nor’easters,” such as the “bomb cyclone” that struck on Jan. 4, to form along the East Coast when the trough’s southwest winds align along the Atlantic Seaboard. The resulting intense contrast in temperature between the cold land and Gulf Stream-warmed ocean provides the fuel for these ferocious storms.</p>
<p>The big question is whether climate change will make dipole patterns – along with their attendant tendencies to produce extreme weather – more common in the future. The answer is yes and no. </p>
<p>It is widely expected that global warming will produce fewer low-temperature records, a tendency already observed. But it may also be true that cold spells will become more persistent as <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1501344">dipole patterns intensify</a>, a tendency that also <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/2016JD025116">seems to be occurring</a>.</p>
<p>It’s hard to nail down whether this weather pattern – overall warmer winters in North America but longer cold snaps – will persist. Understanding the mechanisms behind these complex interactions between natural influences and human-caused changes is challenging.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, research is moving forward rapidly as creative new metrics are developed. Our best tools for looking into the future are sophisticated computer programs, but they, too, struggle to simulate these complicated behaviors of the climate system. Given the importance of predicting extreme weather and its impacts on many aspects of our lives, researchers must continue to unravel connections between climate change and weather to help us prepare for the likely ongoing tantrums by Mother Nature.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89740/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Francis receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. </span></em></p>An atmospheric scientist who studies the Arctic explains why – because of global warming – the U.S. may be in for longer cold spells in the winter.Jennifer Francis, Research Professor, Rutgers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/845202017-09-25T14:48:38Z2017-09-25T14:48:38ZSejarah persekusi Rohingya di Myanmar<p>Sekitar <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-trapped/rohingya-muslims-trapped-after-myanmar-violence-told-to-stay-put-idUSKCN1BU293">420.000</a> muslim Rohingya, sebuah <a href="https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/17966/Abdelkader.pdf;sequence=1">kelompok agama dan etnis minoritas</a> di Myanmar, melarikan diri ke negara tetangga Bangladesh sejak Agustus tahun ini. </p>
<p>Perserikatan Bangsa Bangsa (PBB) menyebut Rohingya sebagai kaum minoritas yang <a href="https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/17966/Abdelkader.pdf;sequence=1">paling menderita persekusi</a> di muka bumi dan menggambarkan kekejaman oleh aparat Myanmar sebagai “<a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=57490#.WcK6utOGOqA">pembersihan etnis</a>,” di mana <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=57490#.WcK6utOGOqA">satu kelompok melenyapkan kelompok etnis atau agama lain</a> dengan menggunakan kekerasan. </p>
<p>Namun persekusi kaum Rohingya bukan hal baru. <a href="https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/17966/Abdelkader.pdf;sequence=1">Penelitian saya</a> mengenai pengalaman muslim Rohingya di Myanmar menunjukkan pola persekusi telah berjalan sejak 1948–tahun kemerdekaan Myanmar dari penjajahan Inggris. </p>
<p>Berikut sejarah tersebut secara singkat. </p>
<h2>Warisan kolonialisme</h2>
<p>Inggris menguasai Myanmar (dulu dikenal sebagai Burma) selama lebih dari satu abad, dimulai dengan serangkaian perang pada <a href="https://www.soas.ac.uk/sbbr/editions/file64388.pdf">1824</a>.</p>
<p>Kebijakan kolonial mendorong penggunaan tenaga kerja migran untuk meningkatkan produksi padi dan keuntungan. Banyak orang Rohingya memasuki Myanmar sebagai <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/burma/burm005-01.htm">bagian dari kebijakan ini pada abad ke-17</a>. Menurut <a href="https://www.soas.ac.uk/sbbr/editions/file64388.pdf">data sensus</a>, antara 1871 dan 1911, populasi muslim meningkat tiga kali lipat. </p>
<p>Inggris juga menjanjikan Rohingya tanah terpisah–sebuah “<a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/burma/burm005-01.htm">Wilayah Nasional Muslim</a>”–sebagai ganti dukungan mereka. Selama <a href="https://rlp.hds.harvard.edu/faq/rohingya">Perang Dunia II</a>, contohnya, kelompok Rohingya berpihak pada Inggris, sementara pihak nasionalis Myanmar mendukung Jepang. Sesudah perang, Inggris <a href="https://rlp.hds.harvard.edu/faq/rohingya">menghadiahi</a> Rohingya posisi-posisi pemerintahan yang bergengsi. Namun, mereka <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/burma/burm005-01.htm">tidak</a> diberi wilayah otonom. </p>
<p>Pada 1948, ketika Myanmar meraih kemerdekaan dari Inggris, <a href="https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/17966/Abdelkader.pdf;sequence=1">pecah konflik berdarah</a> antara pelbagai segmen kelompok etnis dan ras yang berjumlah lebih dari seratus. </p>
<h2>Persekusi puluhan tahun</h2>
<p>Sesudah kemerdekaan, masyarakat Rohingya meminta wilayah otonom yang dulu dijanjikan, namun pemerintah menolak permintaan mereka. Pemerintah juga menolak memberikan kewarganegaraan, berpegang pada anggapan bahwa mereka orang asing. </p>
<p>Kebencian-kebencian ini terus tumbuh. Di Myanmar, banyak yang memandang Rohingya diuntungkan dari penjajahan Inggris. Gerakan nasionalis dan kebangkitan Buddhisme <a href="https://rlp.hds.harvard.edu/faq/rohingya">semakin menyulut</a> tumbuhnya kebencian. </p>
<p>Pada 1950, beberapa orang Rohingya <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/burma/burm005-01.htm">memberontak</a> terhadap kebijakan pemerintah Myanmar. Mereka meminta kewarganegaraan. Mereka juga meminta wilayah yang telah dijanjikan kepada mereka. Tentara <a href="https://rlp.hds.harvard.edu/faq/rohingya">menghancurkan</a> gerakan pemberontakan tersebut. </p>
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<p>Seperti teroris masa kini, pemberontak saat itu disebut “<a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/burma/burm005-01.htm">Mujahid</a>” atau terlibat “perjuangan” atau “jihad.” Penting untuk dicatat bahwa komunitas internasional belum pernah sepakat tentang bagaimana mendefinisikan “terorisme.” Definisi hukum berbeda di tiap-tiap negara, dipengaruhi politik lokal. Seperti <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/defining-terrorism-in-international-law-9780199295975?cc=us&amp;lang=en&amp;">kata</a> cendekiawan <a href="http://hls.harvard.edu/faculty/directory/11613/Saul">Ben Saul</a>, pejabat berwenang dapat menggunakan makna terorisme sebagai senjata, bahkan terhadap saingan politik yang sah. Tidak adanya konsensus, menurut Saul, merefleksikan <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/defining-terrorism-in-international-law-9780199295975?cc=us&amp;lang=en&amp;">ketidaksepakatan</a> mengenai kekerasan yang seperti apa, kapan, dan oleh siapa yang bisa disebut sah. </p>
<p>Pada 1962, hanya dalam satu dekade berikutnya, sebuah kudeta militer menjadikan Myanmar <a href="https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/17966/Abdelkader.pdf;sequence=1">negara militer satu partai</a> yang meniadakan tata kelola demokratis. Selama 60 tahun militer berkuasa, <a href="https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/17966/Abdelkader.pdf;sequence=1">keadaan Rohingya memburuk</a>. Para pejabat berwenang memandang kelompok minoritas ini sebagai ancaman terhadap <a href="https://rlp.hds.harvard.edu/faq/rohingya">identitas nasional</a>. </p>
<p>Mencap Rohingya sebagai orang asing, tentara membunuh, menyiksa, dan memperkosa warga minoritas ini. Mereka <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/burma/burm005-01.htm">melarang</a> organisasi-organisasi sosial dan politik Rohingya. Mereka juga <a href="https://rlp.hds.harvard.edu/faq/rohingya">mentransfer</a> usaha swasta milik kelompok Rohingya kepada pemerintah, melemahkan kelompok tersebut secara finansial.</p>
<p>Lebih jauh, kelompok Rohingya <a href="https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/17966/Abdelkader.pdf;sequence=1">mengalami</a> kerja paksa, penahanan tanpa peradilan, dan serangan fisik. Pada 1991 dan 1992, lebih dari <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/burma/burm005-01.htm">250.000</a> mencoba melarikan diri ke Bangladesh. </p>
<h2>Rohingya: kelompok tanpa negara</h2>
<p>Pada 1977, ketika tentara meluncurkan <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/burma/burm005-01.htm">progam nasional</a> pencatatan warga, orang-orang Rohingya dianggap warga ilegal. Lebih dari <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/burma/burm005-01.htm">200.000</a> melarikan diri ke Bangladesh pada saat itu karena kekejaman yang terus berlanjut. Para pejabat menyebutkan larinya mereka sebagai bukti status ilegal mereka. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/17966/Abdelkader.pdf;sequence=1">Undang-undang Kewarganageraan</a> Myanmar, yang disahkan pada 1982, secara formal menolak memberikan hak-hak kewarganegaraan pada kelompok Rohingya. Untuk menjadi warga negara, undang-undang ini <a href="https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/17966/Abdelkader.pdf;sequence=1">mensyaratkan</a> leluhur seseorang haruslah kelompok ras yang ada di Myanmar sebelum penjajahan Inggris. Para Rohingya masih dikelompokkan sebagai imigran ilegal yang diizinkan masuk oleh penjajah Inggris. Namun Human Rights Watch mencatat bahwa kehadiran mereka di Myanmar dapat ditelusuri sejak <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/burma/burm005-01.htm">abad ke-12</a>. </p>
<p>Hari ini, Rohingya adalah komunitas tanpa negara <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/ibelong/wp-content/uploads/UNHCR-Statelessness-2pager-ENG.pdf">(“<em>stateless</em>”)</a> yang terbesar di dunia. Status ini membuat mereka semakin rentan karena mereka tidak berhak mendapatkan perlindungan hukum apa pun dari pemerintah. </p>
<p>Tanpa kewarganegaraan, hak-hak dasar, seperti akses ke pelayanan kesehatan, pendidikan dan pekerjaan, direnggut dari mereka. Sebagai gambaran, tingkat <a href="http://digital.law.washington.edu/dspace-law/bitstream/handle/1773.1/1373/23PRLPJ0511.pdf?sequence=1">buta huruf</a> di masyarakat Rohingya sangat parah, yaitu 80%. </p>
<p>Selain itu, hak mereka untuk beribadah secara bebas <a href="https://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/irf/religiousfreedom/index.htm#wrapper">dilanggar</a>. Mereka juga mengalami <a href="https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/17966/Abdelkader.pdf;sequence=1">pembatasan</a> dalam hak untuk menikah, berpindah secara bebas, dan untuk memiliki tanah dan properti disebabkan oleh identitas agama dan etnis mereka. </p>
<p>Meski pertumbuhan populasi Rohingya <a href="http://digital.law.washington.edu/dspace-law/bitstream/handle/1773.1/1373/23PRLPJ0511.pdf?sequence=1">menurun</a>, kekhawatiran mengenai Rohingya di Myanmar <a href="http://digital.law.washington.edu/dspace-law/bitstream/handle/1773.1/1373/23PRLPJ0511.pdf?sequence=1">tak hanya mengakar di masyarakat tapi juga disahkan dalam hukum</a>: pasangan Rohingya tidak diperbolehkan memiliki lebih dari dua anak. </p>
<p>Mereka yang melanggar aturan ini berisiko dipenjara, dan pemerintah <a href="http://digital.law.washington.edu/dspace-law/bitstream/handle/1773.1/1373/23PRLPJ0511.pdf?sequence=1">akan menandai</a> anak-anak mereka. Tanpa status legal, mereka tak bisa bersekolah, melakukan perjalanan atau membeli properti. Polisi juga bisa menangkap dan memenjarakan mereka. </p>
<h2>Krisis saat ini</h2>
<p>Meski Myanmar baru-baru ini bertransisi menjadi negara demokrasi, persekusi tetap terjadi. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/sep/15/humanitarian-catastrophe-unfolding-as-myanmar-takes-over-aid-efforts-in-rakhine-state-rohingya">Bencana kemanusiaan</a> yang baru-baru ini terjadi disebut-sebut berawal dari penyerangan pos polisi oleh <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/11/burma-ensure-aid-reaches-rohingya">Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army</a>, sebuah <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41160679">kelompok pemberontak baru</a>. </p>
<p>Pengungsi Rohingya di Bangladesh mengatakan kepada Human Rights Watch bahwa aparat bersenjata Myanmar telah <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/11/burma-ensure-aid-reaches-rohingya">melakukan</a> penyerangan bersenjata, dan membakar rumah-rumah mereka. Mereka juga <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bjvznd/horrifying-stories-of-rohingya-refugees-fleeing-death-in-myanmar">memenggal para pria</a>, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/correspondentsreport/rohingya-woman-tells-story-of-brutal-rape-in-rakhine/8866566">memperkosa para perempuan</a> dan membunuh <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/08/burma-rohingya-describe-military-atrocities">anak-anak</a>. <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/11/burma-ensure-aid-reaches-rohingya">Puluhan ribu</a> masyarakat Rohingya kehilangan tempat tinggal. Sebelum krisis ini, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/03/17/us-call-burma-cease-persecution-rohingya">120.000</a> Rohingya yang kehilangan tempat tinggal tinggal dalam kamp-kamp pengasingan. </p>
<p>Amnesty International mengatakan ada indikasi aparat Myanmar telah <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/09/myanmar-new-landmine-blasts-point-to-deliberate-targeting-of-rohingya/">memasang ranjau darat ilegal di lokasi-lokasi yang biasa digunakan pengungsi</a>. Di antara yang terbunuh adalah dua anak-anak. Dan yang lebih parah, bantuan kemanusiaan internasional <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/11/burma-ensure-aid-reaches-rohingya">tidak diizinkan masuk</a>, mencegah kebutuhan dasar seperti makanan, air, dan obat-obatan mencapai seperempat juta orang. </p>
<h2>Aung San Suu Kyi dan hak asasi manusia</h2>
<p>Tentara Myanmar membantah melakukan kekejaman. Meski menerima kecaman global, mereka mengklaim melakukan operasi “<a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/08/burma-rohingya-describe-military-atrocities">anti-terorisme</a>”. Disebabkan parahnya krisis hak asasi manusia ini, pemerintah Inggris <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/19/uk-suspend-training-burmese-military-treatment-rohingya">memutuskan</a> menghentikan kerja sama pertahanan dan pelatihan militer di Myanmar.</p>
<p>Kritik yang masuk tak ada yang berhasil membuat Aung San Suu Kyi, pemimpin Myanmar dan pemenang Nobel Perdamaian, mengakui penderitaan yang dialami kelompok Rohingya. Di tengah kecaman internasional, ia baru-baru ini <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/13/world/asia/myanmar-united-nations-aung-san-suu-kyi-rohingya.html?_r=0">membatalkan</a> kunjungannya ke Sidang Paripurna PBB di New York. Dalam pidatonya di depan parlemen Myanmar, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41315924">ia membantah</a> ada “konflik bersenjata dan operasi pembersihan” sejak 5 September tahun ini. </p>
<p>Secara tragis, tindakan yang diambil Suu Kyi menyiratkan persekusi terhadap Rohingya tidak akan berhenti dalam waktu dekat. </p>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84520/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Engy Abdelkader does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Persekusi Rohingya dimulai pada 1948, tahun Myanmar merdeka dari penjajahan Inggris.Engy Abdelkader, Rutgers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/840402017-09-21T00:15:54Z2017-09-21T00:15:54ZThe history of the persecution of Myanmar's Rohingya<p>Some <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-trapped/rohingya-muslims-trapped-after-myanmar-violence-told-to-stay-put-idUSKCN1BU293">420,000</a> Rohingya Muslims, a <a href="https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/17966/Abdelkader.pdf;sequence=1">religious and ethnic minority community</a> in Myanmar, have fled to neighboring Bangladesh since August this year. </p>
<p>The United Nations has called the Rohingya the world’s most <a href="https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/17966/Abdelkader.pdf;sequence=1">persecuted</a> minority group and described the atrocities by Myanmar’s authorities as “<a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=57490#.WcK6utOGOqA">ethnic cleansing</a>,” whereby <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=57490#.WcK6utOGOqA">one group removes another</a> ethnic or religious community through violence. </p>
<p>But the persecution of the Rohingya is not new. My <a href="https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/17966/Abdelkader.pdf;sequence=1">research</a> on the Rohingya Muslim experience in Myanmar shows that this pattern of persecution goes back to 1948 – the year when the country achieved independence from their British colonizers.</p>
<p>Here is their brief history.</p>
<h2>The legacy of colonialism</h2>
<p>The British ruled Myanmar (then Burma) for over a century, beginning with a series of wars in <a href="https://www.soas.ac.uk/sbbr/editions/file64388.pdf">1824</a>.</p>
<p>Colonial policies encouraged migrant labor in order to increase rice cultivation and profits. Many Rohingya entered Myanmar as <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/burma/burm005-01.htm">part of these policies in the 17th century.</a> According to <a href="https://www.soas.ac.uk/sbbr/editions/file64388.pdf">census records</a>, between 1871 to 1911, the Muslim population tripled.</p>
<p>The British also promised the Rohingya separate land – a “<a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/burma/burm005-01.htm">Muslim National Area</a>” – in exchange for support. During the <a href="https://rlp.hds.harvard.edu/faq/rohingya">Second World War</a>, for example, the Rohingya sided with the British while Myanmar’s nationalists supported the Japanese. Following the war, the British <a href="https://rlp.hds.harvard.edu/faq/rohingya">rewarded</a> the Rohingya with prestigious government posts. However, they were <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/burma/burm005-01.htm">not</a> given an autonomous state.</p>
<p>In 1948, when Myanmar achieved independence from the British, <a href="https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/17966/Abdelkader.pdf;sequence=1">violent conflicts broke out</a> among various segments of its more than one hundred ethnic and racial groups. </p>
<h2>Decades-long persecution</h2>
<p>After independence, the Rohingya asked for the promised autonomous state, but officials rejected their request. Calling them foreigners, they also denied them citizenship. </p>
<p>These animosities continued to grow. Many in Myanmar saw the Rohingya as having benefited from colonial rule. A nationalist movement and Buddhist religious revival <a href="https://rlp.hds.harvard.edu/faq/rohingya">further contributed</a> to the growing hatred. </p>
<p>In 1950, some Rohingya staged a <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/burma/burm005-01.htm">rebellion</a> against the policies of the Myanmar government. They demanded citizenship; they also asked for the state that had been promised them. Ultimately the army <a href="https://rlp.hds.harvard.edu/faq/rohingya">crushed</a> the resistance movement.</p>
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<p>Much like today’s terrorists, the rebels at the time were called “<a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/burma/burm005-01.htm">Mujahid</a>” or engaged in “struggle” or “jihad.” It is important to point out that the international community has never agreed on how to define “terrorism.” The legal definition could vary by country as politics dictates its contours. As scholar <a href="http://hls.harvard.edu/faculty/directory/11613/Saul">Ben Saul</a> <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/defining-terrorism-in-international-law-9780199295975?cc=us&amp;lang=en&amp;">says</a>, officials can use its meaning as a weapon against even valid political rivals. The lack of consensus, as Saul argues, reflects <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/defining-terrorism-in-international-law-9780199295975?cc=us&amp;lang=en&amp;">disagreement</a> about what violence is legitimate, when and by whom. </p>
<p>In 1962, just over a decade later, a military coup culminated in a <a href="https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/17966/Abdelkader.pdf;sequence=1">one-party military state</a> where democratic governance was woefully lacking. During the next 60 years of military rule, <a href="https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/17966/Abdelkader.pdf;sequence=1">things worsened</a> for the Rohingya. The authorities saw the minority group as a threat to <a href="https://rlp.hds.harvard.edu/faq/rohingya">nationalist identity</a>. </p>
<p>Calling them foreigners, the army killed, tortured and raped. They <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/burma/burm005-01.htm">closed</a> Rohingya social and political organizations. They also <a href="https://rlp.hds.harvard.edu/faq/rohingya">transfered</a> private Rohingya businesses to the government, debilitating the group financially. Further, the Rohingya <a href="https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/17966/Abdelkader.pdf;sequence=1">suffered</a> forced labor, arbitrary detention and physical assaults. In 1991 and 1992, more than <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/burma/burm005-01.htm">250,000</a> attempted to escape to Bangladesh. </p>
<h2>Rohingya ‘statelessness’</h2>
<p>In 1977, when the army launched a <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/burma/burm005-01.htm">national drive</a> to register citizens, the Rohingya were considered illegal. More than <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/burma/burm005-01.htm">200,000</a> Rohingya fled to Bangladesh at the time because of further atrocities. Authorities pointed to their flight as purported evidence of their illegal status.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/17966/Abdelkader.pdf;sequence=1">Citizenship Act</a> of Myanmar, enacted in 1982, formally denied the group citizenship rights. This law <a href="https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/17966/Abdelkader.pdf;sequence=1">required</a> that a person’s ancestors belong to a national race or group present in Myanmar prior to British rule in 1823, to become a citizen. The Rohingya were still classified as illegal immigrants allowed in by British colonizers. As Human Rights Watch has noted, however, their presence actually dates back to the <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/burma/burm005-01.htm">12th century</a>. </p>
<p>Today, the Rohingya are the single largest “<a href="http://www.unhcr.org/ibelong/wp-content/uploads/UNHCR-Statelessness-2pager-ENG.pdf">stateless</a>” community in the world. Their “statelessness” or lack of citizenship increases their vulnerability because they are not entitled to any legal protection from the government. </p>
<p>Without citizenship, they are deprived of basic rights such as access to health services, education and employment. The <a href="http://digital.law.washington.edu/dspace-law/bitstream/handle/1773.1/1373/23PRLPJ0511.pdf?sequence=1">illiteracy rate</a> among the Rohingya, for example, is a staggering 80 percent. </p>
<p>Additionally, they have been <a href="https://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/irf/religiousfreedom/index.htm#wrapper">denied</a> the right to worship freely. They also face <a href="https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/17966/Abdelkader.pdf;sequence=1">restrictions</a> on the right to marry, move freely and own property because of their religious and ethnic identity. </p>
<p>Even though Rohingya population growth has <a href="http://digital.law.washington.edu/dspace-law/bitstream/handle/1773.1/1373/23PRLPJ0511.pdf?sequence=1">slowed down</a>, anxieties <a href="http://digital.law.washington.edu/dspace-law/bitstream/handle/1773.1/1373/23PRLPJ0511.pdf?sequence=1">not only persist but are codified in law</a>: Rohingya couples are allowed no more than two children. </p>
<p>Those who break the law risk imprisonment, and the government <a href="http://digital.law.washington.edu/dspace-law/bitstream/handle/1773.1/1373/23PRLPJ0511.pdf?sequence=1">blacklists</a> their children. Without legal status, they cannot go to school, travel or buy property. The police can also arrest and imprison them. </p>
<h2>The current crisis</h2>
<p>Despite Myanmar’s recent democratic transition, the persecution persists. </p>
<p>The current <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/sep/15/humanitarian-catastrophe-unfolding-as-myanmar-takes-over-aid-efforts-in-rakhine-state-rohingya">humanitarian catastrophe</a> ostensibly began with an assault on police posts by the <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/11/burma-ensure-aid-reaches-rohingya">Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army</a>, a <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41160679">new insurgency group</a>. </p>
<p>Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh told Human Rights Watch that Myanmar government forces had <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/11/burma-ensure-aid-reaches-rohingya">carried out</a> armed attacks, and burned down their homes. In addition, they <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bjvznd/horrifying-stories-of-rohingya-refugees-fleeing-death-in-myanmar">beheaded men</a>, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/correspondentsreport/rohingya-woman-tells-story-of-brutal-rape-in-rakhine/8866566">raped women</a> and <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/08/burma-rohingya-describe-military-atrocities">murdered children</a>. <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/11/burma-ensure-aid-reaches-rohingya">Tens of thousands</a> of Rohingya have become internally displaced. Even prior to this crisis, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/03/17/us-call-burma-cease-persecution-rohingya">120,000</a> displaced Rohingya had been living in internment camps.</p>
<p>Amnesty International said there were indications that authorities in Myanmar have also <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/09/myanmar-new-landmine-blasts-point-to-deliberate-targeting-of-rohingya/">placed illegal landmines at locations commonly used by refugees</a> Among those killed were two children. What is more, international humanitarian aid <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/11/burma-ensure-aid-reaches-rohingya">has been blocked</a>, preventing necessities like food, water and medicine from reaching a quarter of a million people. </p>
<h2>Aung San Suu Kyi and human rights</h2>
<p>The Myanmar Army, meanwhile, denies any wrongdoing. Despite the global outcry, they claim to be conducting “<a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/08/burma-rohingya-describe-military-atrocities">counterterrorism</a>” operations. Due to the severity of the human rights crisis, however, the British government <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/19/uk-suspend-training-burmese-military-treatment-rohingya">decided</a> to stop its defense engagement and training of the military in Myanmar.</p>
<p>None of this criticism, however, has made Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s de facto leader and Nobel laureate, acknowledge the plight of the Rohingya. Amid international criticism, she recently <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/13/world/asia/myanmar-united-nations-aung-san-suu-kyi-rohingya.html?_r=0">canceled</a> her visit to this week’s U.N. General Assembly in New York. In her speech to Myanmar’s parliament, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41315924">she denied</a> that there had been any “armed clashes or clearance operations” since September 5, this year. </p>
<p>Tragically, her actions signal there will be no end to the persecution of Rohingya anytime soon. </p>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84040/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Engy Abdelkader does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The persecution of the Rohingya goes back to 1948, the year when Myanmar achieved independence from the British.Engy Abdelkader, Rutgers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/787212017-06-02T00:52:11Z2017-06-02T00:52:11ZHow bad could Trump's Paris Agreement withdrawal be? A scientist's perspective<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171900/original/file-20170601-25697-j97j8p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The U.S. failing to meet its Paris commitment would cause about $100 billion of damage to the global economy.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/supercell-storm-south-dakota-477987073?src=BNGfvjq8llEVYhIgxsZHJQ-1-0">Cammie Czuchnicki/shutterstcok.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Even before the Paris Agreement was signed in December 2015, market forces and policy measures were starting to tilt the world toward a lower-carbon future. U.S. carbon dioxide emissions <a href="https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/usinventoryreport.html">peaked in 2007</a>, and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/04/world/asia/china-climate-change-peak-carbon-emissions.html?_r=0">Chinese emissions may have peaked in 2014</a>. Solar energy, wind and energy storage are <a href="http://www.iea.org/etp/tracking2017/">expanding rapidly</a>.</p>
<p>Yet as a climate scientist and a climate policy scholar, I know market forces and current policies are far from adequate to limit the rise in global temperatures, as envisioned in the Paris Agreement. </p>
<p>And so the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement could have a range of consequences for the United States and for humanity. But how broad will these impacts be? </p>
<p>Part of the uncertainty stems from how the climate system will respond to humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions. If we are lucky, the climate will be less sensitive than scientists think is most likely; if we are unlucky, it will be more sensitive. But most of the uncertainty arises from how the 194 other signatories of the Paris Agreement and the global economy will respond to Trump’s decision. </p>
<h2>The optimist’s case</h2>
<p>The Paris Agreement’s long-term goal is to limit global warming to 1.5 to 2.0 degrees Celsius (2.7 to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial temperatures, or about 0.5 to 1.0 degrees C (0.9 to 1.8 degrees F) above the current global average temperature.</p>
<p><a href="http://rhg.com/reports/taking-stock-2017-adjusting-expectations-for-us-ghg-emissions">Current policies</a> in the U.S., even without the power plant regulations proposed by the Obama administration, are adequate to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to about 16 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. But significant new policies at the federal and state level are necessary to meet the U.S. commitment under the Paris Agreement to lower its emissions to 26 percent to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. Largely independent of Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, his obstruction of federal policy to cut greenhouse gas emissions means these targets are not likely to be met. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, however, China and Europe appear to be <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/31/china-eu-climate-lead-paris-agreement">ready to take up the mantle of climate leadership that the U.S. is abdicating</a>. And so if the U.S. departure from the Paris Agreement does not disrupt international progress, then Trump’s move may prove largely symbolic. (Indeed, under the terms of the Paris Agreement, <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-apos-paris-agreement-decision-201029230.html">the departure will not take effect until November 4, 2020</a> – a day after the next presidential election.) Nonetheless, U.S. industry may suffer and the U.S. reputation as a reliable diplomatic partner certainly will. </p>
<p>But the planet will not notice much. Over the five years between 2020 and 2025, the U.S. will emit a total of about 2.5 billion more tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent greenhouse gases than it would if it got on a path to meet its 2025 goal. That’s about the same as a 6 percent increase in one year’s worth of global carbon dioxide emissions. </p>
<p>Until recently, the federal government used an estimate of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/curbing-climate-change-has-a-dollar-value-heres-how-and-why-we-measure-it-70882">social cost of carbon dioxide</a> – one way to calculate the damage caused by climate change – of about US$40/ton. Based on that estimate, the additional emissions caused by the U.S. failing to meet its Paris commitment would cause about $100 billion of damage to the global economy – not an insignificant number, but small in comparison to the size of the global economy. If state governments in California and elsewhere pick up some of the slack left by federal abdication, <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/governors-pledge-climate-action-in-face-of-possible-paris-withdrawal/">as some governors are pledging they will</a>, the damage will be less. </p>
<p>If, after Trump, the U.S. rejoins a healthy global climate regime and shifts with a few years’ delay on to an emissions trajectory consistent with Paris’ long-term goals, then the climate will not be much harmed by any transient U.S. lethargy. The main damage will have been to U.S. leadership, in the clean energy industry and in the world at large.</p>
<h2>The pessimist’s case</h2>
<p>However, the Paris Agreement would not have happened without U.S. leadership. Perhaps, despite the efforts of China and Europe, it will fall apart without the U.S.</p>
<p>President Trump has talked often about <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-promised-open-mines-here-s-why-unlikely-n716141">reopening coal mines</a>. This is unlikely to happen without significant subsidies – coal is in general <a href="http://e360.yale.edu/features/why_us_coal_industry_and_its_jobs_are_not_coming_back">no longer competitive</a> as an electricity source with natural gas or, increasingly, solar or wind energy. </p>
<p>But if Trump’s vision of a “canceled” Paris Agreement and booming coal economy were to be realized, an <a href="http://climateprospectus.org/">analysis my colleagues and I did</a> shows that the costs to the U.S. could be severe. <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-energy-plan-poses-climate-threat-to-u-s-economy-61065">As I wrote in August</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>By the middle of the century, climate models indicate that global mean temperature would likely be about 0.5-1.6 degrees F warmer than today under the Paris Path, but 1.6-3.1 degrees F warmer under the Trump Trajectory. The models also show that, by the last two decades of this century, temperatures would have stabilized under the Paris Path, while the Trump Trajectory would likely be about 4.4-8.5 degrees F warmer.</p>
<p>Sea-level projections by <a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chapter13_FINAL.pdf">the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)</a>, by our <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/2014EF000239">research</a> <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1517056113">group</a> and <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2011.09.006">by</a> <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2013.11.002">others</a> indicate that global average sea level at the end of the century would likely be about 1-2.5 feet higher under the Paris path than in 2000.</p>
<p><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature17145">Emerging science</a> about the instability of the Antarctic ice sheet suggests it might be around three to six feet higher – or even more – under the Trump trajectory. And, due to the slow response of the ocean and ice sheets to changes in temperatures, the Trump trajectory would <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1511186112">lock in</a> many more feet of sea-level rise over the coming centuries – quite possibly more than 30 feet.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.climateprospectus.org/">Quantitative risk analyses</a> show that warming would impose <a href="https://health2016.globalchange.gov">costs on human health</a>, on <a href="http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/sectors/agriculture">agriculture</a> and on <a href="http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/sectors/energy">the energy system</a>. It would increase the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1235367">risk of civil conflict</a> globally. And rising seas would <a href="http://sealevel.climatecentral.org">reshape coastlines</a> around the U.S. and around the world.</p>
<h2>The ultra-pessimist’s case</h2>
<p>The pessimist’s case assumes that future catastrophes will come from the climate and its effects. The ultra-pessimist looks elsewhere. </p>
<p>The Paris Agreement is a milestone agreement within a cooperative system of global governance in which organizations like <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/05/trump-declines-to-affirm-natos-article-5/528129/">NATO</a>, the United Nations and the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe-leaders-shocked-as-trump-slams-nato-eu-raising-fears-of-transatlantic-split/2017/01/16/82047072-dbe6-11e6-b2cf-b67fe3285cbc_story.html">European Union</a> play key roles – a system which some of President Trump’s key advisers seek to <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/334031-nato-critic-to-write-trump-nato-speech">undermine</a>. </p>
<p>If isolationist policies, including pulling out of the Paris Agreement and weakening the Western alliance, lead to a global trade war and thence to an economic depression, the shutdown of significant chunks of the economy could lead to a larger reduction in greenhouse gas emissions than any careful, deliberate decarbonization policy. </p>
<p>The U.S. saw a small version of this between 2007 and 2009, when the economic downturn was the primary driver of a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms8714">10 percent drop in U.S. emissions</a>. Most economic models, including those used to produce projections of future greenhouse gas emissions, are not capable of modeling abrupt changes such as these. </p>
<p>Ironically, Trump’s decision to withdrawal from global governance, including the Paris Agreement, would in this scenario lower emissions. But global depression is one of the most harmful ways possible to do that – one that would inflict great hardship on the American workers Trump purports to help.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78721/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Kopp does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A climate scientist and policy scholar sees three possible scenarios following Trump's plan to pull out of the Paris Agreement –
ranging from a small uptick in emissions to a global recession.Robert Kopp, Professor, Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences, and Director, Coastal Climate Risk & Resilience Initiative, Rutgers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/773862017-05-31T02:05:31Z2017-05-31T02:05:31ZHow families with 2 dads raise their kids<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169154/original/file-20170512-3692-iw7smd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The number of men married to each other who have children is rising following legal rulings about marriage equality.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/two-young-fathers-on-sofa-home-279907355">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Kentucky family court judge W. Mitchell Nance says he refuses to hold hearings on <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/04/28/judge-wont-hear-gay-adoptions-because-its-not-childs-best-interest/307679001/">same-sex couples’ adoptions</a> “as a matter of conscience.”</p>
<p>He’s not the only authority defying the <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf">2015 Supreme Court ruling</a> that made marriage equality the law of the land. So-called “religious freedom” bills in <a href="http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/85R/billtext/pdf/HB03859I.pdf">Texas</a>, <a href="http://www.sdlegislature.gov/docs/legsession/2017/Bills/SB149H.pdf">South Dakota</a> and <a href="https://rewire.news/legislative-tracker/law/alabama-child-placing-agency-inclusion-act-hb-24/">Alabama</a> could let private adoption agencies discriminate against same-sex couples. When pressed on the question, Education Secretary <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/05/24/529707712/here-s-what-betsy-devos-said-today-on-capitol-hill">Betsy DeVos</a> recently refused to tell lawmakers whether she believes the federal government should deny government funds to schools that discriminate against the children of LGBT parents – or LGBT students.</p>
<p>Maybe these officials, judges and lawmakers should check out the research on how gay parents differ from straight parents. So far, most of this scholarship has focused on the social, emotional and cognitive outcomes of children they raise. (Spoiler alert: <a href="http://whatweknow.law.columbia.edu/topics/lgbt-equality/what-does-the-scholarly-research-say-about-the-wellbeing-of-children-with-gay-or-lesbian-parents/">These kids turn out fine</a>.) </p>
<p>As a former teacher who now researches gay dads and their families while pursuing a doctorate in education, I am studying how the growing number of men married to other men are raising their children. So far, <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09540253.2017.1303824?journalCode=cgee20">I’m finding</a> few differences between them and their straight peers of similar socioeconomic status – especially regarding their children’s schooling. </p>
<h2>A growing population</h2>
<p>Since the Census Bureau estimates but does not count the number of households headed by two fathers, it’s hard to track them.</p>
<p>Plans were taking shape for the Census Bureau to begin counting same-sex-parented households in 2020. They <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/departure-us-census-director-threatens-2020-count">seem unlikely</a> to move forward due to recent budget cuts, the <a href="https://www.wired.com/2017/05/bad-news-everyone-2020-census-already-trouble/">census director’s recent resignation</a> and the political climate.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, <a href="https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/same-sex-couples/ssc-house-characteristics.html">The American Community Survey</a>, the Census Bureau’s
ongoing demographic survey of approximately three million households, already follows same-sex parenting. It estimates that in 2015, almost 40,000 two-dad households were raising children, compared to about 30,000 in 2010.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171501/original/file-20170530-23707-oveb7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171501/original/file-20170530-23707-oveb7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171501/original/file-20170530-23707-oveb7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=399&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171501/original/file-20170530-23707-oveb7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=399&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171501/original/file-20170530-23707-oveb7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=399&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171501/original/file-20170530-23707-oveb7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=502&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171501/original/file-20170530-23707-oveb7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=502&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171501/original/file-20170530-23707-oveb7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=502&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Actors Neil Patrick Harris and Gideon Scott Burtka-Harris, who are married to each other, brought their twins to the ‘Smurfs 2’ premiere in 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/inVision-John-Shearer-Invision-AP-a-ENT-CA-USA-/928bdee8326d461b9a6197a35c3a8ed9/2/0">John Shearer/Invision/AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Parenting roles</h2>
<p>How do parents in these families settle into specific roles? In short, just like heterosexual parents do.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15504281003704942">Research</a> suggests that affluent, white, two-father households adhere to traditional parenting roles. One is the primary breadwinner, while the other earns either less income or none at all and handles most of the caregiving and chores. </p>
<p>However, two-dad households can challenge the 1940s Norman Rockwell image of gendered parenting – just like heterosexual couples can. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25240028">Households with two fathers working full-time</a> rely on daycare facilities, babysitters, housekeepers and nearby relatives for support. Some of these men even take on responsibilities based on <a href="http://www.mensstudies.info/OJS/index.php/FATHERING/article/view/348">skills and strengths</a>, rather than who fits the socially and culturally constructed mold of being more “motherly” or “fatherly.” </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171358/original/file-20170529-25198-7f130b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171358/original/file-20170529-25198-7f130b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171358/original/file-20170529-25198-7f130b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=430&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171358/original/file-20170529-25198-7f130b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=430&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171358/original/file-20170529-25198-7f130b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=430&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171358/original/file-20170529-25198-7f130b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=540&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171358/original/file-20170529-25198-7f130b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=540&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171358/original/file-20170529-25198-7f130b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=540&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Research suggests that two-dad households may not differ that much from the parenting patterns of heterosexual couples.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/different-types-families-158965958?src=o1TFkh4pw8MJT4nX3Cb97Q-1-87">www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Community and school engagement</h2>
<p>And that’s where the parenting of gay dads may differ from a traditional heterosexual household, as my research and the work of other scholars suggests.</p>
<p>While interviewing and spending time with 20 two-dad families living in the Northeast for my current study, I have learned that <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09540253.2017.1303824?journalCode=cgee20">they’re apt to step up</a>. Many become involved as classroom parents, voluntarily assisting teachers, reading books or leading singalongs. Some take leadership roles by becoming active PTA members or organizing events that go beyond their children’s classes. In some cases, gay fathers become PTA presidents or serve on school boards. </p>
<p>Like all civically engaged parents, gay fathers support their local museums and libraries and enroll their kids in camps and extracurricular activities. They sometimes do additional volunteer work for social justice groups. </p>
<p>The largest-scale <a href="https://www.glsen.org/learn/research/national/report-iii">survey to date</a> was conducted in 2008 by the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network, an organization focused on the safety of LGBT students in schools. That study, which included 588 LGBT parents, suggested that gay fathers could be more likely to be involved in school-based activities than heterosexual dads.</p>
<p>Aside from the simple fact that they love their children just like all parents do, <a href="https://www2.clarku.edu/faculty/facultybio.cfm?id=589">Abbie Goldberg</a>, a Clark University researcher, and her colleagues have shown that increased presence may be due, in part, to fathers’ initiatives to <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02568543.2016.1244136">counter bias and assert more same-sex visibility</a> and inclusion in schools. My current study, indicates the same. Many of the men taking part have told me that being actively involved helps them preemptively counteract potential negative encounters with school personnel and other families.</p>
<p>Gay dads prefer schools and communities that are safe and inclusive. Beyond that, they want judges like Nance and lawmakers bent on barring them from fatherhood to see that two-dad families are for the most part just like any other family.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77386/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Leland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Research reveals few differences between the parenting of gay men and their straight peers. But it looks like gay fathers could be more apt to volunteer at their children's schools.Andrew Leland, Ph.D. Candidate, Graduate School of Education, Rutgers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.